Looking At What Dunn Has Done
Adam Dunn of the Reds is not too complicated of a player to figure out: he walks a lot, strikes out a lot, and hits home runs. In his eighth big league season Dunn has a career walk rate of 17%, a career strikeout rate of 32.7%, and hits a home run about once every 14 at bats. In fact, from 2004 until yesterday, Dunn’s 189 home runs ranks first in the National League and third overall to Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz. His 504 walks ranks first regardless of league as do his 816 strikeouts; in fact, second place in punchouts is Jason Bay with 639, about 180 behind. For anyone confused, Ryan Howard ranks third in this category primarily because he wasn’t a full-time regular in 2004-05.
This year has been essentially the same for Dunn as he finds himself atop the leaderboard in walks and in the top five in both strikeouts and home runs. Still, one major difference is his current .227 batting average. Though I am strongly against using batting average as any type of end-all evaluative barometer, his low percentage of hits in at bats has prevented his already high OBP and SLG from vastly increasing.
His BABIP, which over the course of his career comes out to .291, currently rests at just .248. The only other season in which he posted a sub-.250 BABIP was in 2003, when he still walked, struck out, and homered quite a bit but managed to produce a .215/.354/.465 slash line. While that season resulted in an .819 OPS his OBP and SLG have combined to provide a .902 OPS as of right now.
This got me thinking how many people have posted sub-.230 batting averages while simultaneously producing OPS counts of .900 or higher. Querying for all players satisfying these parameters while amassing 400 or more plate appearances, I found… nobody. I couldn’t find any player that has ever hit .230 or lower with an OPS .900 or higher. Though it isn’t likely Dunn will finish the season with a batting average that low, especially when considering his BABIP has been much higher in the near past, if he does he will end up literally in a league of his own.
Since .900 is a high OPS for years past I modified the search to give me anyone with a sub-.230 batting average and OPS+ of 130 or higher—based on Dunn’s current number—while totaling at least 400 plate appearances. This produced three results, yet all belonged to the same player: Gene Tenace. In 1974, Tenace had a .211 BA/130 OPS+; in 1978, a .224 BA/134 OPS+; and in 1980, a .222 BA/137 OPS+.
Again modifying the search to include those with sub-.230 BAs and an OBP of at least .380, four results and three names surfaced; Tenace in both 1978 and 1980, Wes Westrum’s 1951 season of .219 BA/.400 OBP, and Ray Cullenbine’s 1947 season of .224 BA/.401 OBP.
Just Tenace’s 1978 season and Cullenbine’s 1947 season achieved this “feat” with at least 500 PAs, and only Cullenbine did so with 600+ PAs. Essentially, assuming Dunn doesn’t get hurt, it is very unlikely this BA/OBP or BA/OPS+ combo will continue. Based on his past BABIP results compared to this year it is more likely the BA will increase, in turn meaning his OBP and SLG will look even gaudier. I’m not sure if teams are in serious, serious discussions regarding his services or not, but they should be… even if he isn’t really passionate about the game.
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hah, pretty amusing that Gene Tenace - the Blue Jays current hitting coach - met those first criteria.
The General Manager doesn’t care much for Dunn as a player, feeling that he leaves something to be desired, but is fine with someone that put up similar numbers as a player coaching up his hitters.
Is that irony?
Tenace, anyone?
I was watching ESPN yesterday, I believe it was Mike and Mike in the Morning when Tim Kurkjian was on the phone as a guest, and they were talking about all of the rumors of pitchers being traded in the wake of the Sabathia and Harden deals. It was noted that there aren’t too many hitters being bandied about in rumors, and if I recall correctly, Timmy K. went out of his way to say that, while Dunn was probably going to be made available, he was not a “big bat.”
My jaw dropped because I thought Tim was a numbers guy. I wasn’t thinking that he was a strict adherent of Sabermetrics, but I assumed that he was diverse enough in the philosophies to realize that, unless you put all your eggs in the “Rah rah batting average” and “Strikeouts indicate baseball incompetence” baskets, Adam Dunn is easily one of the top-ten most productive hitters in all of baseball — maybe top five.
Dunn and Pat Burrell are very similar, it seems. Burrell doesn’t have as much power but their hitting approaches are very similar and, without running the numbers, I would bet that they’re close to each other in Three True Outcomes.
It takes people a while to realize how valuable players like those two are — it took most of Philadelphia eight seasons to jump on Burrell’s bandwagon. The rest of the country has yet to catch on, seeing as how Corey Hart (whose nickname will heretofore be “Undeserving”) was voted in for the last spot in on the NL All-Star roster. The fans had two chances, and the players had a chance too, and neither party arrived at the correct conclusion by not only voting Burrell in, but by nominating him as a starter.
Unsurprisingly, Dunn was not even in the picture when it came to All-Star spots. Adam Dunn: 133 OPS+; Kosuke Fukudome: 113 OPS+; Corey Hart: 117 OPS+.
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Very interesting article.
I’m a huge Adam Dunn fan; he celebrated this article yesterday by cranking the longest home run hit in the majors so far this year. The wind was blowing out at Wrigley, but hey, the big man still completely annihilated it.
I just hope he never winds up on the Yankees.
Dunn isn’t a flashy player nor a tremendous fielder and yes, he strikes out a ton, but to say he isn’t a big bat is irresponsible. Given that Tim Kurkjian gets paid oodles of money to do his analytical job, this is even more egregious… which is odd because Kurkjian is generally very good. Maybe he meant that teams aren’t interested in his three true outcome approach, to which I would argue, why not?
If Dunn hit .280/.380/.520 instead of .240/.380/.520, how much more productive would he be? How much more would he be valued in the market?
My answers are a) not much and b) a whole bunch. Odd.
Compare Dunn and Ryan Howard, two low BA guys but high Power right now:
Dunn: .226/.382/.523
Howard: .234/.325/.510
So, both have low BAs and high SLG numbers but the difference between the two is that Howard is walking MUCH less than last year whereas Dunn is still walking at the same rate.
I don’t understand why the DBacks don’t go for him if they don’t go for Bonds.