The first thing that comes to mind when this topic is explored is where does Howard stack up against the other top tier one baggers in the Majors. Maury Brown of bizofbaseball.com does a great job of comparing Howard to Pujols, while ESPN The Magazine’s Matt Meyers had a great comparison of Howard to Adam Dunn.  Since Meyers’ article is an Insider one, I will refrain from going too deep into his details.

The other guys who pop into my head are Prince Fielder and Mark Teixeira.  We will have to compare them to Howard later this weekend, but I wanted to get this ball rolling with Pujols and Dunn.  Because this could be a large entry, I’m going to break it up and start with Dunn.

One of the things that Meyers looks at is both players’ adjusted OPS.  Adjusted OPS tried to balance out park factors and leagues, to give a more accurate comparison of the players’ abilities in the batters box.  In adjusted OPS, a number of 100 is considered average.  Here are the numbers that Meyers put up for Howard:  167 in ‘06, 144 in ‘07, and 124 in ‘08.  As you can see, his numbers are declining at a pretty steady rate.

Lets compare those numbers to Dunn’s, who hit 114 in ‘06, 136 in ‘07, and 129 in ‘08.  Dunn has been pretty consistent, and is also the only player in baseball to send at least 40 balls over the wall in the past five MLB seasons.

Dunn’s numbers matter because he made $13mil in ‘08, and is currently unemployed and having to drop his asking price for ‘09.  Shit, Dunn may have to settle for a one year deal making as little as $8mil in ‘09.  Meanwhile, Howard will get at least $14mil for ‘09.  Both players are defensive liabilities, but at least Dunn can play a corner outfield spot in addition to first base.  Howard, not so much, as it’s first base or DH for this “well-rounded” ball player.  Both players are virtual windmills at the plate, and both hit for terrible averages.

The thing Howard has over Dunn is his ridiculous RBI rate.  Meyers brings a great stat to the table, however, which shows that Howard was first in the Majors in RBI opportunities over the past three seasons, while Dunn was 37th.

So the question, in regards to Howard/Dunn, is whether or not Howard is worth $5mil more than Dunn was paid last year.  When you take into account that Dunn is facing a huge pay cut right now, it makes Howard’s figure a little more hard to swallow.  In case you are wondering about their age comparisons, Dunn is 10 days younger than Howard.  Since I am planning on this being a multi-entry debate, and I want to be as fair as possible to Howard, I will refrain from making up my mind just yet.