Will Someone Please Get Us Some of What Ryan Howard Is Smoking?

One new writer joining our ranks before we head home for the evening: Ashley Humienny, a Philly-ish native, Penn student, and hard-core sports fan. When she told us sports was her religion, we told her we'd be happy to have her proselytizing here. Welcome, Ashley!

A sign that, perhaps, our expectations are getting a little too high, eh?

As of a few hours ago, Phillies first baseman remains the only player eligible for arbitration: OF Jayson Werth just signed what Comcast SportsNet reports to be a multi-year deal. Also, the Phils and pitcher Chad Durbin agreed today to a one-year, $1.635 million K. But Howard certainly didn't waste anyone's time being passive aggressive.

Howard's request for $18 million in salary is the third-highest in the history of MLB's arbitration process, lagging only behind that of Yankees staple Derek Jeter and former Houston pitcher Roger Clemens.

This is like déjà vu on serious crack for the city and the Phillies front office. When the team offered a mere $7 mil to Howard last year, following his notch as the fastest MLB player to clock 100 homers, the powers that be felt that it wasn't enough, awarding him the $10 million he asked for.

Howard promptly made good on his courtroom victory and plummeted into an early-season slump, closing out April 2-for-25 with a .172 batting average.

But as we all know, the Phillies' momentum has ridden the caboose for the past two years, and that's when Howard began to get hot—well, along with the rest of his team.

We don't know about this one. The team will have more bargaining power this year, though arbitration usually falls in the player's favor. His plate numbers haven't improved, and the Phils went ahead and won the first two games of the World Series without him.

And seriously... asking for that much money in this economic climate? Baseball is doing just fine, sure, but that might not hold up in his case. Everybody's cutting corners—we certainly haven't heard a peep about Koby Clemens getting his third Hummer.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons user Googie Man