One of the debates out in cyberland that elicits the most heated arguments is assessing the value of Phillies cleanup hitter Ryan Howard.

If you call him overrated and overpaid, a large percentage of Phillies fans go crazy and call you an idiot.

If you call him a great RBI guys and one of the top few hitters in the game, the stathead crowd goes crazy and calls you an idiot.

This much is true: Ryan Howard drives in a lot of runs. He has fared very well in MVP voting. Does that make him a great player?

Since his first full season in 2006 -- when he hit 58 home runs and drove in 149 runs and won the NL MVP Award -- Howard has driven in 776 runs, easily the most in baseball. And it's not even close. Here are the top five:

Ryan Howard: 776
Albert Pujols: 686
Miguel Cabrera: 670
Mark Teixeira: 661
Alex Rodriguez: 657

Because of those RBIs, Howard has fared very well in the MVP voting. He was a legitimately awesome hitter in 2006, when he hit a career-high .313, 38 points above his .275 career mark. Besides leading the NL in home runs and RBIs, he ranked fifth in on-base percentage, first in runs created and second in OPS. If you're not familiar with runs created, it simply takes all of the player's offensive statistics to arrive at a number that equates with runs. If you add up individual runs created on a team, the total very closely approximates the team's actual runs scored. Overall, Howard hit .313/.425/.659. Pujols hit .331/.431/.671 with 49 home runs and 137 RBIs, but Howard won the MVP vote, with 20 first-place votes to 12. The Cardinals actually made the playoffs, but the Phillies won two more games and Howard was a great storyline, chasing 60 home runs in his first full season in the majors. If you like a stat called Win Probability Added, which breaks down each at-bat and its affect on the game's outcome (giving credit to the hitter or pitcher only), Howard ranked second to Pujols. After factoring in defense and baserunning, Baseball-Reference ranks Howard as the seventh-best position player in the NL. Still, it wasn't a terrible result as far as MVP votes go.

In 2007, Howard hit .268/.392/.584, with 47 home runs and 136 RBIs, both second in the NL. Teammate Jimmy Rollins actually won the award as the Phillies reached the postseason for the first time since 1993 while Howard place fifth in the voting. Chase Utley, who matched Howard's .976 OPS and played a superlative second base, finished eighth in the voting. Howard ranked eighth in the NL in OPS but did hit well with runners on base -- .295/.447/.676.

In 2008, Howard's numbers dipped to .251/.339/.543, but he led the NL in home runs and RBIs and placed second to Pujols in the MVP vote. The voting that year was pretty amazing. Pujols hit .357/.462/.653. His OPS was more than 200 points higher than Howard's ... and yet 12 of 32 voters thought Howard was a more valuable player (and two thought it was Phillies closer Brad Lidge). Howard, of course, drove in 30 more runs, which turned many votes in his favor. (The Phillies also won the East, while the Cardinals missed the playoffs.) Now, it turns Howard did hit betters with runners on -- .309/.396/.648, compared to .196/.281/.442 with the bases empty. Still, hitting with the bases empty is important as well. If there was ever proof that MVP voters love RBIs, the evidence came in 2008. In the end, at least the right guy won the trophy.

In 2009, Howard's numbers improved slightly to .279/.360/.571, with 45 home runs and a league-leading 141 RBIs. He ranked ninth in OPS and fifth in runs created and finished third in the MVP vote behind Pujols and Hanley Ramirez. Howard hit about as well with men on base as he did overall -- .282/.373/.593.

In 2010, Howard hit .276/.353/.505 with 31 home runs and 108 RBIs. He didn't rank in the top 10 in the NL in on-base percentage or slugging percentage, but did rank fourth in RBIs. He finished 10th in the MVP vote.

Here, let's sum everything up in a nice, little chart, listing Howard's ranking in the NL in various categories each season:



If you look at the chart and examine everything that goes into making a great hitter and not just home runs and RBIs, it's clear that Howard lags behind in some areas, primarily his ability to get on base with the elite hitters in the game. When you start factoring in aspects like fielding and baserunning, he dips even further.

This is where Phillies fans start going crazy. This doesn't mean Howard hasn't been a terrific player. According to Baseball-Reference, Howard ranks as the 12th-best position player in the NL since 2006, behind Pujols, Utley, Ramirez, Carlos Beltran, Matt Holliday, Chipper Jones, David Wright, Troy Tulowitzki, Jose Reyes, Adrian Gonzalez and Lance Berkman. That's not an insult. That's high praise. Ryan Howard is an excellent player, a cleanup hitter on four playoff teams (and soon to be a fifth). He's just not the most valuable player in the National League even if he is once again battling for the RBI crown.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.