This one time my friends and I were watching some horrendous movie starring Samuel L. Jackson. Somehow, we began discussing how much we would be willing to pay Mr. Jackson to narrate our life for a day. The figures got a bit ungodly - as you would expect - and in the end, it all went for naught. To this day the sound of Jackson's voice stings my soul. With that being said, I'm in no way exaggerating when I say I would pay a good amount if J.P. Howell were to Twitter about his life. With quotes like these, who wouldn't:
"Willy's been looking at me funny this whole spring. I'm a little nervous about what he's thinking. So, I don't know, man. We'll find out."
See what I mean? Howell is basically a character from a Kevin Smith movie. I mean he's got like two responses that he applies to any given scenario. As I mentioned before, having access to the Baseball Info Solutions database opens avenues for studies I never could have achieved in the past. Thankfully, this is one of them: to find out how much I should be willing to pay for Howell to Twitter for a year.
Below you see the expression expectancy chart:
And here's a trend graph:
The data doesn't seem to agree. We would assume that more good news - or more wins - would raise the level of sweets, but the usage would imply the Rays were near .500 in 2007. If we assume the expectancy chart is to be trusted, Howell's "Sweet" usage could continue to go up, but therein lies the problem: we shouldn't simply assume an uptrend. To project the 2009 trend we should take the last three years of data and average it - perhaps even apply weights.
I'll spare you the math and simply share the results. Yes, we should expect a decent amount of "Sweet" usage this year, but perhaps not as much as 2008. I'm not ready to cal it a fluke, but you have to admit it's a bit of an outlier.
Based on my preliminary findings, a year of Howell's Twittering services is worth ~1.2 million. Closer to 2 million if he proves 2008 wasn't a fluke.