The Adam Dunn Article

For some random reason, I sat down to watch the Dodgers and Brewers play two night ago on May 6th, particularly because one of my favorite former Red Sox players, Adrian Gonzalez, had started the year off on a tear with 9 home runs and a .364 batting average through his first 26 starts.

And yet, it was a highly touted, baby-faced, lanky 23-year old center field prospect playing for LA, who was thrust into a very important role for the team earlier than expected because of an injury to Yasiel Puig, that caught my eye. That night, he ended up hitting the first multiple home run game of his career on two solo blasts in the 5th and 8th innings. The next night I turned back on the Dodgers game to watch Joc Pederson again and he came to the plate 6 times, struck out 3 times, and walked on 2 other occasions.

This has been the theme of Pederson's early rookie season because when he comes to the plate, he either goes yard, strikes out, or takes first on a walk (9 of his first 23 big league hits have been home runs). There is only one man over the past decade who defined his career based upon those three true outcomes and that is the one and only Adam Dunn (the original three true outcome king was Rob Deer).

There is a game that little kids know from Sesame Street called "One of These Things," where Kermit and Susan identify which item does not belong in a group. If I give you Jason Statham, Liam Neeson, Daniel Craig, and Steve Seagal, the name that does not quite fit in for an action movie star is Seagal. How about Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, Elgin Baylor, and John Havlicek? The answer is Havlicek because he won a NBA Championship. If I gave you Carlos Mesa, Danny Bejarano, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Evo Morales, Bejarano is the one that does not fit (know your Bolivian Presidents guys). If I give you Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Roberto Benigni, and Jack Nicholson, you know the odd man out would be Benigni because all four won the Academy Award for Best Actor, but only three of them can act.

So when people ask you in terms of home runs which name does not fit between Adam Dunn, Willie McCovey, Duke Snider and Willie Stargell, the answer may surprise you but it is Duke Snider, who is the only one that did not hit at least 460 career home runs (Snider hit 407 with the Dodgers, Mets, and Giants). Dunn's 462 career home runs are in the top 20 for a player over the last 40 years and he hit more long balls than all-time great power hitters like Andre Dawson, Juan Gonzalez, Billy Williams, Al Kaline, and Dale Murphy.

In very Adam Dunn-like manner, he is also third all-time in strikeouts with 2,379 career K's, behind only Reggie Jackson and Jim Thome, and his career K% of 28.6% is the highest for any batter with a minimum of 4,600 career plate appearances. Only one batter could put up those kind of numbers, so long live the unique legacy of Adam Dunn (also, long live the Starks because they are quickly dying out)!

Like most normal Americans, I have been waiting to write an Adam Dunn article for years, hoping that he would eventually get into the 500-home run club and be BY FAR the worst player ever to do so. As I patiently sat at home and fixated over his quickly rising home run numbers, despite his annual 170 strikeout seasons (and that would be a good year for him), I realized that Adam Dunn is a bigger hit or miss character than Ryan Reynolds (I will never forget the horror that was masquerading as the film Green Lantern, never). The "Big Donkey," as he is known around MLB circles, has always fascinated me with his all or nothing approach at the plate, an emphasis on the three true baseball outcomes of homers, strikeouts, and walks, which Joc Pederson is now emulating.

Dunn was incapable of doing anything other than slugging home runs or striking-out with his big, loopy left-handed swing during his 14-year career with the Reds, D-Backs, Nats, White Sox, and A's. His high-risk, high-reward batting style was always put under a microscope because of his astronomical strikeout rates and his failure to drive runners in scoring position home, but he was a guy that was one of baseball's most alluring hitters with his easy power. Only a few names in MLB history can be compared to all-time great power hitters from Ralph Kiner, Hank Greenberg, and Jimmie Foxx to Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas, but also be aligned with batters like Lee May, Royce Clayton, Mark Reynolds, and Seth Green in terms of empty opportunities at the dish (one of those names may not apply).

Unfortunately, Dunn retired after the Oakland A's loss to the Kansas City Royals in the AL Wild Card Game last year. Despite waiting until May to make see if he would come back for some team to hit homers and strike out in 2015, I think he may just be making cameos in movies like he did in Dallas Buyers Club. Although he fell 38 long balls short of 500, an arbitrary mark anyway, some of his career numbers in terms of only hitting home runs, striking-out, or walking may never be repeated.

Here Are Some Of The Craziest Adam Dunn Stats:

• Of the 41 hitters in major league history to have hit at least 440 home runs, only Adam Dunn (25.1) and Dave Kingman (20.4) had a career WAR below 42.0. 
• The only other player to have blasted at least 360 homers and yet still have a career WAR as low as Dunn and Kingman was Joe Carter, who had a career WAR of 17.1. Carter rarely got on base, but he hit 396 long balls during his career, most of them with the Blue Jays after a massive trade between San Diego and Toronto that sent Carter and Roberto Alomar to the Jays and Fred McGriff to the Padres in 1989. Carter's 1993 World Series homer for Toronto made up for all those seasons when his OBP was barely above .300 because he never walked. (Carter is the third coolest guy in Toronto behind the Ford brothers, but definitely ahead of Phil Kessel).
• From 2010 to 2013, Adam Dunn stroke out 787 times in 2,400 plate appearances. Over the final 15 seasons of his career with the Red Sox from 1969 to 1983, Carl Yastrzemski stroke out a total of 776 times in 8,721 plate appearances, less than Dunn with more than 3.5 times the plate appearances. And yet, Dunn and Yaz sit next to each in other on the all-time home runs list and are 2 of only 40 players in nearly half a century to have a season with an isolated power of .295 or above (Yaz in 1967 when he won the AL MVP and the Triple Crown had a .295 ISO and Dunn had a .303 ISO in 2004). 
• The beauty of baseball is that different pros can do things in such drastically different manners to help their team win a game. Look at American League left fielders Alex Gordon and Hanley Ramirez.
• Gordon, who has won four straight Gold Gloves for KC, catches any ball within his zip code. His ultimate zone rating, which according to fangraphs "puts a run value to defense, attempting to quantify how many runs a player saved or gave up through their fielding prowess (or lack thereof)," is the 6th highest in the league (his UZR of 25.0 led the MLB last season). Despite only having a modest slash line of .253/.364/.425 so far in 2015, Gordon is baseball's best left fielder (sorry Matt Holliday) and the most important everyday player on the Royals along with Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez.
• Hanley Ramirez may be the worst left fielder to have played the position in some time. He is slowly morphing into Manny Ramirez with his complete ineptitude to play the outfield, but his pure looking, effortless swing that just shoots balls over the monster. The Red Sox rely so heavily on his production at the plate that it is no coincidence that when he hit 10 home runs in April the Sox went a respectable 11-10 and then when he hurt his left shoulder and did not hit a home run from May 1 to May 27, the Sox took a nose dive and went 8-14. Gordon and Hanley play the same position and yet contribute in such different manners to their team's success, kind of like Yaz and Dunn (my have-heartened attempt to get back on topic because I wanted to rant for a little).
• In 2004, Adam Dunn hit 46 home runs for the Cincinnati Reds, but he also stuck out 195 times and had a K% of 28.6%. Of the 136 single-seasons in which a player tagged at least 45 home runs, only four ever had a K% as high as Dunn. In 2001 with the Indians, Jim Thome hit 49 home runs, but had a K% of 28.7%. Ryan Howard blasted 47 homers in 2007 with the Phillies, but his K% was 30.7% that year. In 2013, Chris Davis hit 53 home runs for the Orioles, but also had a K% of 29.6% because of his 199 strikeouts.
• A team is going to take a season where a guy can give you 45-50 home runs, regardless if his strikeout totals range from 170 to 200 K's. Dunn's all-or-nothing approach made him a threat to go long every time he was at the plate.
• Some of the all-time baseball greats have had historic home run seasons, but unlike Dunn, they did so without a high strikeout rate. There have been 10 players in MLB history to hit at least 45 home runs in a season and to also have a K% of 10% or below.
• In 1930, Babe Ruth hit 49 homers and had a K% of 9.0% and in 1931 he hit 46 HR and had a 7.7 K%.
• Lou Gehrig had three such seasons when he hit 46 homers in 1931, 49 home runs in 1934, and 49 homers in 1936 while having a 7.6 K%, an incredible 4.5 K% (he stroke out only 31 times the entire season), and a 6.4 K% in those respective years.
• Joe DiMaggio hit 46 homers and had a 5.3 K% in 1937 and in 1947 Johnny Mize blasted 51 homers and had a 6.3 K%.
• Ted Kluszewski, the worst player to accomplish the feat, had two such seasons when he hit 49 homers in 1954 and 47 home runs in 1955 while having a 5.3 K% and 5.8 K% in those years respectively.
• In 1955, Willie Mays hit 51 homers and had a 9.0 K%, in 1961 Roger Maris hit 61 long balls and had a 9.6 K%, and Ralph Kiner hit 54 homers and had a 9.1 K% in 1964.
• More recently, Barry Bonds had 46 homers and a 7.7 K% in 2002 and 45 homers and a 6.6 K% in 2004, and Albert Pujols had three such seasons when he hit 46 homers in 2004, 49 home runs in 2006, and 49 homers again in 2009 while having a 7.5 K%, 7.9 K%, and a 9.1 K% in those respective years.
• In 2012, Adam Dunn stroke out 222 times for the Chicago White Sox in 539 at-bats, the second most in a single-season in MLB history behind only Mark Reynolds's 223 strikeout year in 2009 with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Dunn stroke out on 41.1% of his official at-bats, but he still hit 41 homers, which gave him a rate of home run per every 13.1 at-bats (8th best in White Sox history)! That number actually set a White Sox record for most homers in a season by a left-handed hitter, and was only behind Albert Belle (49 in 1998), Jermaine Dye (44 in 2006), Frank Thomas (43 in 2000 and 42 in 2003), and Jim Thome (42 in 2006) for most home runs in a single-season in franchise history. If that doesn't tell the story of Adam Dunn's career, I'm not sure what does.
• In that wild season, where Dunn struck out more than Armie Hammer at the box office, he had 3 different games with 4 strike outs and 20 games with at least 3 strikeouts.
• In 17 years with the Yankees, Lou Gehrig never stroke out four times in a game. In 2,164 career games, Gehrig only had 13 games where he struck out 3 times at the plat/  including only one such game over his final 7 complete seasons from 1932 to 1938. He did so while also hitting 493 career home runs and leading the league in home runs three different times (1931, 1934, and 1936).
• Mel Ott played in the majors for 22 years with the New York Giants, and he had just 8 career games with 3 strikeouts out of 2,730 career outings. In 1930, Ott had just 3 games with 2 or more strikeouts in 148 starts (for perspective, you could have penciled Dunn in for at least 2 K's a game in 2012 because he did so in an astounding 65 contests).
• Only once in his entire career did Tony Gwynn have a three strikeout game for the San Diego Padres (it came in 1986 against the Dodgers and Bob Welch).
• While Ted Williams may be "The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived," Stan Musial is damn close, especially when you consider that he hit 475 home runs while NEVER striking-out. In 1943, Stan came to the plate 700 times and struck out just 18 times in route to one of his 3 MVP's with the St. Louis Cardinals. His absurdly low strikeout rate makes Dunn's constant swinging and missing look that much worse, like how Armie Hammer must have felt worse after the The Lone Ranger get crushed by Despicable Me 2 at the box office.
• Adam Dunn came to the dish 8,328 times during his career and in those plate appearances, he hit 462 home runs, stroke out 2,379 times, and recorded 1,317 walks (he led the league in walks in 2008 with the Reds and Diamondbacks and in 2012 with the White Sox). Of Dunn's 8,328 career plate appearances, his at-bats finished without the fielders coming into play and not involving the defensive team other than the pitcher and catcher 4,158 times (stat geeks argue that pitchers do not have control over balls put into play and therefore the three true outcomes (TTO) are the best way to measure their performance). Dunn's career TTO% of 49.9% is the highest in the history of baseball (for context the league TTO% has typically been anywhere from 25% to 30% over the last half decade, and it be increasing with the recent league-wide spike in home runs and strikeouts).
• The highest team three true outcomes percentage for a single-season came in 2010 with the Arizona Diamondbacks, which had a club TTO% of 37.11% with batters like Mark Reynolds and Adam LaRoche. 
• Rob Deer, the man the stat was originally designed for, had a career TTO of 49.1% while Jim Thome had a 47.6% career TTO, and Mickey Mantle had a 40.2% career TTO. Dunn's TTO sum is the highest in MLB history, and his 2012 season where his TTO% was 56.83% ranks behind only two Jack Cust seasons in 2007 and 2008 when the left-handed hitter's TTO% was 58.19% and 57.02% in two seasons with the A's.
• Since the three true outcomes deemphasize contact hitters because "TTO hitters" get on base through walks rather than constantly putting the ball into play, hitters with low strike out numbers, and typically lower home run numbers, have some absurdly low TTO's.
• Not including this season with the Miami Marlins because the year is still ongoing, Ichiro came to the plate 9,663 times from 2001 to 2014, and he had a TTO sum over that period of 1,646 (112 home runs, 944 strikeouts, and 565 walks). Thus, Ichiro's TTO% over his first 14 seasons was just 17.0%. 
• Going further back, Ty Cobb came to the plate 13,084 times during his 24-year career with the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Athletics and he had a TTO sum of 2,047 (117 home runs, 681 strikeouts, and 1,249 walks), which means that his career TTO% was 14.8% compared to Adam Dunn's 49.9 TTO%!