Adam Dunn

[Mustang Sally]

Can someone explain to me what the White Sox are doing with Dunn? I obviously don't understand baseball, because how is a guy who's batting .162 and strikes out 38% of the time this season (I looked it up) being used as the clean-up hitter on a major league team?

Is it that the team is telling him: "Don't worry about batting average or strikeouts. Just give us those home runs, baby! Yeah!! You da man!!!" (Then, of course, the guy spits. In baseball, they all freakin' spit)

I don't get it. Even if they want him swinging for the fences on every pitch, he has only 14 homers this year. Is it worth it?

Should this guy be hitting 4th? Should he be in the major leagues at all?

I'd really like to know.

 

[klunderbunker]

Given how much he strikes out, no way should he be hitting cleanup. Yeah Dunn can hit home runs and does so at a pretty solid clip, but when you strike out that much it can cripple your team's momentum. The idea of a cleanup hitter is to drive in runs, but with a lot of them they'll knock a double instead of a home run every now and then. With Dunn it's almost all homers or strikeouts, which doesn't do much good most of the time. His power is very good when it's working, but when it's not he's just ugly.

 

[The Crock]

The White Sox don't really have many options, which is probably the only reason they're still using Dunn in the clean up hole (he'd probably fit best at 6th, at this point). After all, he's got SOME power left, whereas guys who could replace have just been awful. I mean, Jeff Keppinger has a -1.3 WAR, Dayan Viciedo has 4 home runs, and Paul Konerko's finally starting to play his age. I guess Gordon Beckham could step in for a few games once he's ready to go, but he hasn't exactly proven to be anything more than an average player in his time in the majors. If Viciedo heats up, the clean-up spot will be his, but until then I can't help but think they'll stick with Dunn.

 

[CH David]

Dunn has been utter shit to start the season. Sox fans, and hopefully other people who watch him, know that he generally has three outcomes in his ABs. He either strikes out, walks, or hits a homer. A key to this is that he can't beat the shift, and he generally won't try to get base hits to the left side. He gets paid the big money to hit homers and drive runs in.

At the start of the season he had changed up his approach at the plate to be more aggressive, swing earlier and what not. Didn't really work for the first month, month and a half. Then he started going back to what gave him success in his career, taking pitches, not hitting into the shift as much, going to center and right a bit more. He had some success with it, but has been slumping lately. Hell the whole team has struggled the past week and a half.

Now the thing about him is, who do you put in the 4th spot? Konerko has appeared to finally regress due to age this season, Viciedo is too streaky to be hitting there, and nobody else has the kind of power and consistency that you look for in the 4 spot. Beckham is not a 4 hitter, more suited for the 2 hole or bottom third of the lineup. They don't have another power hitter on the team to hit there, and nobody is really going to come up from the minors and be a savior. Most people are calling for Josh Phegley to replace Tyler Flowers at catcher, but he would be hitting in the bottom 3rd anyway, not at 4.

Really, if Konerko was hitting well I don't think there would be a problem. Slide Dunn to the 5 or even to 6 or 7 with Viciedo and Gillaspie going ahead of him. But with pretty much the whole team in an offensive slump, there is nobody to take his spot. Management has talked to a lot of the players, Dunn included, saying that if they don't start producing, changes will be made.

 

[CH David]

The White Sox don't really have many options, which is probably the only reason they're still using Dunn in the clean up hole (he'd probably fit best at 6th, at this point). After all, he's got SOME power left, whereas guys who could replace have just been awful. I mean, Jeff Keppinger has a -1.3 WAR, Dayan Viciedo has 4 home runs, and Paul Konerko's finally starting to play his age. I guess Gordon Beckham could step in for a few games once he's ready to go, but he hasn't exactly proven to be anything more than an average player in his time in the majors. If Viciedo heats up, the clean-up spot will be his, but until then I can't help but think they'll stick with Dunn.

Beckham is an average hitter. His defense is second to none. Keppinger was never brought in to be a power hitter, mostly because he doesn't have much power. He was signed to be the two guy, put the ball in play, not strike out, have De Aza in scoring position for the guys like Rios, Dunn, Konerko, and so on to drive in. Viciedo has the talent to be the guy in the 4. But his plate discipline, and current hitting slump, is the reason he isn't there. When he came back from his oblique injury last month he was tearing the cover off the ball, taking walks, and in general just hitting well. BA was near if not over .300. Now it's below .250 I think. Paulie, well he is showing his age so far. Getting beat on the fastball, not seeing the curve well, that kind of thing.

Even though he, and the team in general, are slumping offensively, I would not mind seeing Conor Gillaspie in the 4 spot behind Rios. He has a quick bat and could drive in runs if guys are on in front of him. But his power isn't like Dunn's so that probably keeps him from it.

Going forward there is no good replacement for him right now. If he can finish with a .200 average and 30+ homers I'll take it. Better than what most expect him to finish with at this point.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

I know that 500 home runs likely won't be a guaranteed hall of fame milestone anymore, but Dunn currently sits at 419, and it is very likely that he will reach the 500 mark by the end of his career. Could you imagine him going into the HOF with a career .237 average?

Outside of Rios, who has been slumping himself recently, none of their position players have been producing.

 

[shattered dreams]

Can someone explain to me what the White Sox are doing with Dunn? I obviously don't understand baseball, because how is a guy who's batting .162 and strikes out 38% of the time this season (I looked it up) being used as the clean-up hitter on a major league team?

White Sox don't have much of an offense and strikeouts and average are historically overrated as performance metrics. That isn't to say that Dunn hasn't sucked this year. He has. However, in baseball small sample sizes don't tell you a whole lot about future performance. It actually can be worth it for Dunn's approach as long as he gets enough hits and walks. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that there is some luck as to whether a ball drops in for a hit or not. Dunn has been exceptionally unlucky this year. His BABIP, batting average balls in play is .169 which would probably be historically bad luck were it able to hold up. Average BABIP is around .300, now Dunn is slow and has the shift to deal with so we don't expect him to be there but he will likely still be around at least .240 BABIP when the season ends. You also have his K% wrong because MLB is a little weird on how they treat walks. Dunn strikes out around 38% of the time he doesn't walk, get hbp or sac fly. However, since he walks a lot that is only actually about 33% of the time. This is actually less than he struck out last year. Last year he had an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of .800. This was the second lowest OPS of his career. The average OPS for a cleanup hitter in the AL for 2009 (only year I could easily find) was .806. If he had a .240 BABIP due only to more singles Dunn would have an average of .240 and an OPS of .791 in spite of currently having the lowest BB% for a season in his career (thus likely to improve as well).

So in a nutshell, it actually may not be unreasonable to expect that Dunn has a true talent level around that of an average AL 4 hitter which would seem to be good enough for a team that has an offense amongst the worst in baseball presently.

In baseball, they all freakin' spit)

I obviously don't understand baseball,

I appear to have stumbled upon a more interesting discovery than I intended to.

 

[Mustang Sally]

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that there is some luck as to whether a ball drops in for a hit or not.

For sure. When thinking about what the clean-up hitter is supposed to do, the ideal situation would be the first three guys getting on base so the 4-slot can drive 'em all in......and with all the statistics available in baseball, there's probably one that records what a player's batting average is driving in runners on base. Of course, the stat is virtually meaningless since the clean-up hitter has no control over whether the guys at bat before him get on base or not. If he's a clean-up hitter who's constantly coming to bat with the bases empty, the only one he can drive in is himself, with a home run. Just looking at stats by themselves is often misleading.

Still, if Adam Dunn is the White Sox best option at clean-up now, it's no surprise they're struggling in their division, no?

I thank you guys for answering my questions.

 

[CH David]

Still, if Adam Dunn is the White Sox best option at clean-up now, it's no surprise they're struggling in their division, no?

I keep trying to rationalize this in a way that makes sense. So far it hasn't worked out. The way that Rios, Dunn, Konerko, and Viciedo go offensively, the Sox will go too. If they hit well, like Dunn and Viciedo were doing for a few weeks, they'll do well. If they all struggle, well them losing 10 of 11 gives you that answer. That's really all it comes down to. The team just isn't performing all around. That is why they have lost 10 of 11, now 10 of 12. Blame it on nobody being able to go into the four spot and perform as the reason why they are now in last in the division. It's an oversimplification in my opinion, simply because the four spot isn't the most important role in the lineup, or the best hitter.

By the way, Dunn was in the 5 spot today.