Spencer Howard

Spencer Lee Howard (born July 28, 1996) is an American professional baseball pitcher in the San Francisco Giants organization.

He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Philadelphia Phillies and Texas Rangers.

Howard was born in San Luis Obispo and raised in Templeton, California.

A multi-sport athlete at Templeton High School, he considered quitting the baseball team to focus on volleyball, but was persuaded to stay by the coach.

He received no scholarship offers to play college baseball, but made the Cal Poly Mustangs baseball team after a fall tryout.

Howard was a redshirt during his freshman year, taking the season to build his strength and pitch velocity.

Spencer Lee Howard was born on July 28, 1996, in San Luis Obispo, California.

He grew up in nearby Templeton, California, and was a multi-sport athlete at Templeton High School, playing baseball, volleyball, soccer, and Ultimate Frisbee.

Baseball was not Howard's athletic priority; he almost quit the team during his junior year in order to pursue volleyball, and he did not play on private travel teams like many other high school baseball players seeking to break into professional leagues.

MLB.com ranked Howard the 99th-best prospect in his draft class, while Baseball America ranked him 137th.

After being persuaded by his coach to remain on the baseball team, Howard helped take Templeton to the Los Padres League championship as a junior in 2014.

At Templeton, Howard served as both a pitcher and an outfielder.

During his senior season, Howard posted a 7–3 win–loss record, with a 2.20 earned run average (ERA), and he struck out 87 batters in 66 2⁄3 innings pitched.

As a hitter, he also maintained a .306 batting average.

At the end of the year, he was named both the San Luis Obispo County Player of the Year and the Los Padres League Most Valuable Player.

Having not received any scholarship offers to play college baseball, Howard chose to attend California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and major in business.

In August 2015, before arriving at Cal Poly, Howard contacted the Mustangs baseball program and said that he was interested in playing for them.

He impressed coaches at a fall tryout camp, pitching up to 88 mph, and was one of 35 players named to the team.

Howard chose to redshirt his freshman year in order to put on more muscle mass.

He took up a yoga-based athletic program, gained 10 lbs, and improved his fastball speed from 86 – to above 90 mph.

The summer after his freshman year of college, Howard played collegiate summer baseball with the Bellingham Bells of the West Coast League.

Under the supervision of pitching coach Jim Clem, he spent the summer diversifying his pitching repertoire with a new breaking ball and changeup.

Playing as a redshirt freshman in 2016, Howard served as a relief pitcher for the Mustangs, where he posted a 3–1 record and a 2.95 ERA, striking out 39 batters in 36 2⁄3 innings.

Howard also recorded one save.

In his 21 season appearances, Howard averaged more than 9.5 strikeouts per nine innings pitched.

Howard returned to Bellingham for another season of summer baseball in 2016.

Most of his work with Clem that summer was in building his strength, in the hopes that he would become a starting pitcher.

He further improved his pitching during two seasons of collegiate summer baseball with the Bellingham Bells of the West Coast League, and by his junior year in 2017, Howard served as a starting pitcher for the Mustangs.

The Phillies selected Howard in the second round of the 2017 MLB Draft, and he spent the season with the Class A Short-Season Williamsport Crosscutters, working on his pitching mechanics.

After a member of the Cal Poly starting rotation suffered an injury, Howard was called to fill in as a starting pitcher for the 2017 season.

Partway through his redshirt sophomore season, Fangraphs named Howard the top overall draft-eligible pitcher, as well as the top starter, in the Big West Conference.

He went 8–1 that season in 17 games, 12 of which were starts, with a 2.05 ERA and 97 strikeouts in 87 2⁄3 innings.

In 2018, he was assigned to the Class A Lakewood BlueClaws, with whom he pitched the first postseason no-hitter in franchise history.

Howard missed two months of the 2018 season due to a shoulder injury, and played in the Arizona Fall League to make up for the time he missed.

Howard has struggled in the major leagues with maintaining his pitch velocity long into games, an issue that has been traced back to his shoulder injury from 2018.

After working his way up to Double-A in 2019, Howard was one of several Phillies prospects who began the pandemic-shortened 2020 season at an alternate training site, preparing for a major-league call-up.

He made his MLB debut that season, but a recurrence of the shoulder injury limited his output.

Since his major league debut, Howard has struggled with maintaining his pitch velocity into the later innings of a game, and in 2021, he was paired with long reliever Ranger Suárez for his scheduled starts.

Howard was part of a trading deadline deal in 2021 that sent him to the Rangers in exchange for Kyle Gibson and Ian Kennedy.

Howard uses four pitches on the mound In addition to his staple fastball, which averages around 94 mph, he alternates a changeup, slider, and curveball as his off-speed pitches.