5 Baseball Players Who Will Have Less Success in 2007

Below are five players who you can expect to have a drop off in some of the major statistical categories. This does not necessarily mean they will have a bad year but in some cases they had such a good year last year that you can not expect them to perform as well.

1. Ryan Howard-Philadelphia Phillies

Reigning National League MVP Ryan Howard had an amazing year in 2006. He batted .313 had a 58 Homeruns and drove in a whopping 149 runs. Ryan Howard is without a doubt a special talent and will have many successful years in the future but after a year like that there is not much room for improvement. After having monster year like that every team will be fearing Howard when he comes to bat. Look for his On Base Average to go up quite a bit as teams will be looking to walk him any chance they can, especially until the Phillies can get him some protection in the lineup. Teams will have no problem putting Howard on base with the always under achieving Pat Burrell behind him. Howard will still have an all-star year but expect something more along the lines of 45 Homeruns and 120 RBI's.

2. Chien-Ming Wang-New York Yankees

In his first full year Wang went 19-6 with a 3.46 ERA. Wang is a great talent and has a tremendous ability to keep the ball on the ground but do not expect to see Wang win 20+ games this year. A full year gave every team the chance to get a lot of at bats against Wang and improve their scouting report on him. Wang will get plenty of run support from his Yankee offense but expect something more along the lines of 14 or 15 wins. Wang was great at getting out of jams last year but in order to get out of jams you need to get into them. The Yankee bullpen is a bit of a question mark after Rivera so expect Wang to lose a couple wins when the bullpen lets him down also.

3. Justin Verlander-Detroit Tigers

After any successful rookie year there is always talk of a sophmore slump. It doesn't happen with every player but it happens with enough players to bring it up. Expect one here. Well, maybe not a slump but I see a significant drop off in Verlanders numbers of 17-9 with an ERA of 3.63. In his last 10 games last year Verlander was just 4-4 and only got past the fifith inning three times. He also gave up 5 or more runs four times in those ten games. Verlander also has an ERA over 8.00 this spring. Expect something more along the lines of a 13 win season with an ERA in the low 4.00's

4. Gary Matthews Jr.-Anaheim Angels

Gary Matthews Jr. was the first of many contracts this past off-season that left me scratching my head. $10 million a year for a player who has played on 8 different teams in 8 years? A player who is worth that much money should not move around that much money. In 2006 Matthews did have a great year with an avg. of .313, 19 homers and 79 RBI's but that was also in one of the best hitters ballpark playing for the Texas Rangers. Playing in the Angels stadium will have those numbers drop a bit. Last year was also the first year Matthews ever batted over .275 who has a career batting average of just .263. This is without even getting into the fact that his name has been brought up in a case about the untraceable HGH.

5. The Florida Marlins

A huge part of the Marlins success was their manager last year in Joe Girardi. He did something special a the youngest team in baseball history. They were in the race up until the last couple weeks of the season and some of those young players like Ramirez, Uggla, and Olsen put up some fantastic years. Expect a bunch of the over achievers from last year to have a significant drop off under new management.