Adam Dunn Archives - Page 2 of 2

Report: Dunn signs two-year deal with Nationals

February 11, 2009 by Benjamin Kabak 83 Comments

Strike Adam Dunn off the list. According to The Washington Post, Dunn and the Nationals have agreed to a two-year deal. No word on the dollar amount, but I’d have to guess it’ll be around the $8-$10 million AAV range. That leaves Manny Ramirez as the sole remaining corner outfielder, and he is facing very few options.

Update: Tom Verducci at SI.com reports that this deal is indeed worth $20 million over two years. In my opinion, that makes Abreu’s deal with Anaheim seem like a pretty good one for the Angels right now.

Musings on Adam Dunn

January 28, 2009 by Benjamin Kabak 125 Comments

As baseball rapidly approaches the two-week mark until Spring Training, a few potential impact players remain unsigned. One of them is a 29-year-old with a career OBP/SLG of .381/.518 who has hit 40 or more home runs five seasons running.

Among some Yankee fans, signing Adam Dunn would cap off what has been an excellent off-season. Today, Buster Olney chimed in:

Dunn might draw interest from the Yankees, a team for which he is perfectly suited, if they could shed the contracts of two of Xavier Nady, Hideki Matsui and Nick Swisher. Abreu, Dunn and Varitek can go someplace and bust it for one year, and if they have strong seasons, they can hope the economic troubles will have less bearing on the market next offseason than they have this winter.

If that argument — that Dunn should wait a year — sounds familiar, that’s because iYankees pontificated on it last week. With the Yankee outfield picture unsettled beyond 2009, Dunn could land himself a deal from the Bombers in about ten months’ time.

Of course, Dunn’s defense raises some eyebrows, but his bat is not in doubt. The Yanks could probably move one of Nady or Swisher if they’re willing to take a less-than-ideal return. They probably can’t move the less-than-healthy Hideki Matsui, and they probably don’t want to move both Swisher and Nady. An outfield of Damon-Melky/Gardner-Dunn doesn’t inspire much confidence.

But Adam Dunn is a tempting target for the Yanks, and until he signs, he’ll be on the periphery of Yankee interest. If the price is right, they just might pounce.

The all-time leaders in plate appearances per strikeout

December 5, 2008 by Joe Pawlikowski 116 Comments

In our lengthy discussion of Adam Dunn, one topic his detractors hit on hard was strikeouts. As in, he racks them up. He’s been in the top 10 in strikeouts for the past five years, leading the league in 2004, 05, and 06. But good players strike out, right? Does A-Rod not rack up 130 or so strikeouts a year? What’s another 30 or 40?

Yes, good players strike out. But do they strike out that often? Take a look at the all-time leaders in strikeouts. Certainly more good players up there than bad ones (damn you, Dave Kingman). That’s not really fair, though. A more telling list would be strikeout percentage. Unfortunately, the only readily available stat is lowest strikeout percentage. Not useful for our purposes, but interesting because you won’t find many modern players on the list.

So I went over to B-Ref’s Play Index — or, more accurately, Ben went to the PI. The data wasn’t readily available, but I had him put it in a spreadsheet, because I hate baseball. You can view it here. No, the names there aren’t quite as inspiring as the names on the top raw career strikeouts. And lookey there: Adam Dunn is fourth all-time, sandwiched between Pete Incaviglia and Preston Wilson.

Yet is Dunn at all like the players surrounding him? Rob Deer didn’t have nearly as much power and didn’t take as many walks; ditto Jose Hernandez; Incaviglia was never much better than mediocre; there has never been a reason to throw Preston Wilson a strike. If anything, he seems a little bit like Jay Buhner, and even then he didn’t take a walk like Dunn.

I think this is a long way of saying that strikeouts by themselves don’t mean too much. Different players have different games. Some guys, especially those that hit for a lot of power, are going to swing and miss a good deal. It’s when they bring other skills to the table, like a good eye and a power stroke, that we can forgive the strikeouts. It’s when they’re pretty much worthless — looking at you, Mr. Deer — that they’re a major issue.

Get It Dunn

December 2, 2008 by Mike 118 Comments

The date is August 10th, 2004, and the Dodgers’ Jose Lima finishes his warmup tosses prior to the bottom of the fourth in Cincinatti’s Great American Ballpark. Adam Dunn steps to the plate to leadoff the inning, having popped out to second to end a nine pitch battle in his first at-bat. The first pitch is a called strike, and Dunn fouls off the second for a quick 0-2 count. Lima Time tries to get Dunn flailing at something off the plate for the K, but The Big Donkey takes three straight balls to the work the count back full. Dunn fouls off the sixth pitch of the at-bat, then the seventh.

It’s just his second trip to the plate in the game, but Dunn has already coaxed sixteen pitches out of Lima; the rest of the Reds have seen just thirty pitches combined in their eleven plate appearances. Lima delivers the eighth pitch of the at-bat and Dunn connects, sending the ball deep to centerfield. It’s not a question of if he hit it out, but by how much. The ball clears the bleachers and takes a bounce off Mehring Way beyond the stadium walls. It lands on a piece of driftwood in the Ohio River, which eventually comes to a rest in nearby Newport, Kentucky.

The official measure on the homer is a monstrous 535 feet, and because of the way the Ohio-Kentucky border was defined by the low water mark of the river back in 1793, it is also believed to be the first (and only) homerun in Major League history to cross a state line in flight. Now that is freaking cool.

The Diamondbacks, who have already laid off thirty one front office employees this offseason, declined to offer Dunn arbitration before Monday’s line, meaning that the Type-A free agent will not cost a draft pick to sign. I think you know where I’m going with this.

Everything about Adam Dunn is big. He’s physically huge (listed a 6’6″, 275 lbs, and I’m willing to bet it’s muscle, not fat) and was a tremendous football prospect in high school, signing on to play quarterback at Texas before deciding to focus on baseball full time. He’s got tremendous power, racks up huge walks totals and even huger strikeout totals. Since his first full season in 2002 only three players have hit more homers (A-Rod, Pujols, Thome) and no one has drawn more walks (non-Barry division). At the same time, however, he’s also struck out nearly two hundred times more than any other player in the game. The man is not without his faults, but the positives outweigh the negatives.

Traditionalists point to his low batting averages (.246 career BA) and aforementioned strikeout totals as evidence of him being an unproductive player, but those of us unafraid of funny acronyms and spreadsheets point to his sky high wOBA (.383 career), EqA (.301) and VORP (37.4) and say “hey, this dude is a really good player.” He’s Joe Morgan’s dream player because he’s extremely consistent, smacking 40 homers on the nose in each of the last four seasons, and posting OBP’s of .388, .387, .386 and .386 in four of the last five years. Stick him in the Yankee lineup with the short porch in right, and those numbers might jump to 50 & .410. Dunn has seen 4.24 P/PA in his career, more than Jason Giambi (4.12) and just barely less than Bobby Abreu (4.27), and he’s also nice and clutchy (2.81 avg WPA over the last five years).

He sucks defensively out in left field, posting revised zone ratings of .899, .826 and .878 over the last three seasons. Dunn has some experience at first, but he’s bad there as well and hurts the team less by hiding out in a corner outfield spot. The Yanks have the option of starting Johnny Damon in centerfield, then sliding him over to left late in the game for defense with Melky/Gardner taking over up the middle. Dunn’s a better athlete than you may think, but his arm will make you wonder how he was ever recruited to play QB for the Longhorns.

Dunn’s name hasn’t even been whispered this offseason, with Mark Teixeira and Manny Ramirez rightfully hogging the position player headlines. Given the holes in the lineup created by the departures of Giambi and Abreu, as well as the complete lack of outfielders under contract beyond 2009, it would behoove the Yanks to look into bringing The Big Donkey aboard. His skill set is undervalued, and while he’ll still command an eight-figure annual salary (he made $13M last year), he’s a significantly cheaper but only marginally inferior option to Teixeira. Obviously short term contracts are ideal, but a three year deal for the now 29 yr old Dunn wouldn’t be absurd. PECOTA has a favorable 50 percentile projection, so even a guaranteed fourth year wouldn’t be the end of the world. And think, he won’t even cost a draft pick!