FanPost

Is Adam Dunn truly this bad?

Now this is my first ever FanPost, so please be gentle with me.

Here's a little breakdown of Adam Dunn since he's been a full time starter in the league vs. the time he's spent in the American League.


Team

AB

HR

AVG

BB/K

SLG

OBP

FWAR

Runners On

Runs Batted In

RBI Pct.

2002-2010

AVERAGE

526

37

0.247

0.60

0.512

0.377

3

420

93

13.28%

2011

White Sox

231

7

0.173

0.42

0.316

0.308

-1

183

29

12.02%

At the first glance there's some really big differences.  He's on pace to hit only 16 HRs, a lower total that even his Rookie year when he had 244 ABs (13 more than he's had this year so far). He's slugging 200 points lower (an obvious correlation to his home run output), but other peripherals are just as bad, his BA and OBP are 70 points lower. But we didn't bring Dunn to be on base. We brought him in to be a run producer. He's knocked in an average of 101 RBI each year.  So why is Dunn not plating people this year? Home Runs? Lack of base runners in front of him? Or diminishing skills?

Here's the 2 stats I think are most telling to Dunn's lack of production, which should worry all Sox fans. 16.4% and 10.4%

Dunn has hit 16.4% of his fly balls in the infield, the highest in his career, tied with 2002 when his number are not nearly worth the $12 mil we're paying him.  This is very unsettling, since he averages 10% of his fly balls ending up in the infield.

The other stat is 10.4%, which is extremely disturbing, his Home Runs per Fly Ball. This stat is usually 20% or higher in his career, and this shows that he's losing a lot of his power. 

He's had slow starts, but nothing like this.  He's never had a over impressive RBI % (RBI-HR/Runners on base) because he's driven in 30% of his runs as he crosses home plate.  I originally started this investigation off by looking at his RBI% and then when I saw his FB%'s I went "Oh, there's his problem".  His K% is up slightly, his K/BB ratio is up a little, but it's clearly the fact that he's not hitting his fly balls over the fence, but they are ending up more in the infield, which does no one any good.

So this is a very pessimistic view of what is going on with Dunn.  I don't see this working out too well for the White Sox, and that makes me upset.  Maybe he's nursing an injury that they just aren't talking about, but this is more troubling than when Paulie was struggling in '07 and '08.

SouthSideSox is a community-driven site. As such, users are able to express their thoughts and opinions in a FanPost, such as this one, which represents the views of this particular fan, but not necessarily the entire community or SouthSideSox editors.

Recent FanPosts

In This FanPost

Teams
Players