Spencer Howard Says the Process of Getting Better in Philadelphia Was "Like Trying to Polish a Turd"
Former Phillie Spencer Howard hasn’t exactly been lighting the world on fire for the Texas Rangers.
In three appearances, he’s pitched 7.1 innings, given up eight runs on 10 hits and seen his season ERA balloon to 6.56. He’s in a new spot with a new team, so hell, maybe he figures it out some day, but we’re not holding our breath up here.
Interestingly enough, he was asked recently about his time in Philadelphia and dropped a beautiful quote, tailor-made for an irreverent sports blog.
From Phillies Nation, via The Athletic:
“I could have kept doing all the things I was doing in Philly and trying to get better in the wrong way, I guess?” Howard told Levi Weaver of The Athletic during a recent postgame Zoom press conference following a start with the Texas Rangers. “Like trying to polish a turd? Or I could scrap that, put my faith in these guys in this organization, and just really get to work on becoming the best version of myself that I can be. And for me, that’s really the route that I wanted to take. I know it’s not going to be immediate. It’s gonna be a lot of tough games. But I know in the long run it’s going to be for the better.”
Howard essentially said the Phillies were focused on “winning now” instead of long-term success, and that, we would assume, contributed to his struggles.
He said this later in the Zoom call:
“It was just all results in-game,” Howard clarified. “For me, it was just taking my mechanics as they were and trying to make them decent enough to get outs in-game versus going through this process of scrapping everything, getting back to the basics of how your body should move, and then working from there forward. Which kind of sacrifices results, but this organization has some faith in me and I know I can get there. So it’s just a matter of grinding through this.”
Yeah? Well that’s not a surprise. Team is trying to win now. The development is done in the minor leagues. You don’t call a guy up and then “scrap” everything and start over. It still goes down as an organizational failure, since obviously the guy wasn’t ready and didn’t get what he needed in the minors, but Howard is smart enough to know that YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME, as the great Herm Edwards once said. This ain’t intramurals, brother.