Matthew Cerrone

Buzz: Dunn’s Defense, K’s and Clutchness
By Matthew Cerrone - Jul 28, 2008 3:42 pm

According to Joel Serman in the New York Post, “The Mets did consider Cincinnati’s Adam Dunn, but his poor defense, historical problems in clutch situations and high strikeout rates have eliminated interest.”

On Friday at SNY.tv, Ted Berg explained why the Mets should consider buying low on Dunn.

…as i said over the weekend, i’m not sure it’s a matter of buying low…it’s a matter of offering more than what the Reds believe they will draft with the two picks their likely to get in the off-season when dunn leaves as a free agent…

Depite hitting 29 home runs, with a .385 OBP, Dunn is batting just .238, has made five errors and has struck out in roughly 25 percent of his plate appearances this season.

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265 Comments »

Comment by maybealittlemoredelgado
2008-07-28 15:44:35

phillies just sent eaton to the minors. that’s a shame.

Comment by swingers31
2008-07-28 16:31:46

I dont understaqnd why noone is bringing up Nelson Cruz from the Texas Rangers. Im sure he can be obtained. Check his stats!

i rather take a shot on him than depleting our system even more for these descent at best outfielders(bay,ibanzez, dunn)

 
Comment by napes22
2008-07-28 18:36:26

Here’s something I don’t see anyone mention about Dunn. Why would we go out and acquire ANOTHER lefty? We need another righty bat.

Lefties (including switch hitters better from the left side):
Reyes, Beltran, Delgado, Church, Endy, Schneider

Righties
Wright, Ramon Castro, Tatis.

I left out all our 2B candidates because they can’t hit righty or lefty.

We need another strong righty bat. That was Alou, but we saw what he’s about. Nady would have been perfect, but we’ll have to look elsewhere.

 
 
Comment by krispy644
2008-07-28 15:45:02

Dunn’s price way too high.

won’t catch a deep fly ball in Shea. Cincy’s park is easy because its so small.

way too streaky player to get!!

Comment by Church4prez
2008-07-28 15:45:46

totally agree. finally someone with a clue about this stiff

 
Comment by zer09
2008-07-28 15:51:27

I’m so happy that the Mets FO is not on the “he has a high OBP” bandwagon. This guy would be a terrible acquisition - a Mo Vaughn of 2008. Let Cincy deal his “k-in a big spot” @ss somewhere else…

Comment by MizzIKE
2008-07-28 16:26:17

Are you arguing against Dunn or Beltran?

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Comment by zer09
2008-07-28 17:11:01

Tell me you didn’t just put those guys in the same sentence? Delusional…

 
Comment by ravin108
2008-07-28 18:22:41

Beltran can actually run the bases, so his high OBP has much greater value

 
 
 
Comment by gameball
2008-07-28 15:55:21

“. . . poor defense, historical problems in clutch situations and high strikeout rates have eliminated interest”

Thank you! I’ve been banging my head against the wall here on Dunn, getting called “clueless about baseball” because I’m one of those who see through his one-dimensional fantasy-league stats.

It’s gratifying to read that the team’s braintrust feels the same way.

Comment by toomanyuniforms
2008-07-28 16:15:28

Agreed. of course, “clutch” doesn’t persist season to season, so Dunn’s “historical problems in clutch situations” must be a mirage. Right stat guys? Right?

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Comment by napes22
2008-07-28 18:31:39

Agreed - hitting homeruns in bunches isn’t great. We need someone more consistent. His high K rate, which you can argue to death is a big factor here. He’ll hit HR’s, but he stirkes out a lot in big situations and doesn’t perform great with RISP.

 
 
Comment by KHERUB VON KHERUB
2008-07-28 15:45:49

The difference between Dunn and Thames is that Thames hits in the clutch….but I wouldn’t give up Scho for him….I’d do Parnell…but I’d rather have Ibanez….

K ~

Comment by BringBackDaveTelgheder
2008-07-28 15:48:15

This is foolish, Dunn consistently leads the league in homers every year, has a good zone rating in LF, and gets on base 39% of the time.

Instead of knocking things he’s bad at, how about looking at the things he does well.

Comment by mrose
2008-07-28 15:48:51

Dunn also consistently plays in a bandbox

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Comment by BringBackDaveTelgheder
2008-07-28 15:56:55

Have you ever watched him play? He doesn’t exactly hit wall scrapers.

 
Comment by GravediggerHebner
2008-07-28 15:57:19

I am not a Dunn advocate, and I certainly don’t have his HR distance statistics in front of me, but none of his that I’ve seen are of the “barely made it over the wall” variety, and his road slugging percentage is better than his home.

 
Comment by Nightlife
2008-07-28 15:58:03

Umm, he is pretty much the same hitter on the road as he is at home.

 
 
Comment by zer09
2008-07-28 15:52:31

His 39% OBP would go down considerably at Shea.

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Comment by jamie
2008-07-28 16:00:02

why? he’ll walk less?

 
Comment by GravediggerHebner
2008-07-28 16:02:18

His career BA, OBP & SLG at Shea:
.235 .323 .432

 
Comment by jamie
2008-07-28 16:09:45

then I guess the answer’s a resounding “maybe!” ;-)

 
Comment by There's Always '09
2008-07-28 16:47:18

“His career BA, OBP & SLG at Shea:
.235 .323 .432″

That’s cause our pitching is and always has been siiiiick!!!! :-)

 
Comment by zer09
2008-07-28 17:16:38

Or maybe that’s because Shea can turn a lot of his hits into outs which prompts pitchers to walk him less and pitch to him more. And that .432 SLG tells me that he K’s a lot more too. I’ll bet his k ratio is much higher at Shea… just the more proof that he doesn’t belong here

 
 
Comment by krispy644
2008-07-28 15:55:34

29 homers and only 68 rbi’s. thats a bad line.

.244 with RISP

not a clutch guy.

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Comment by BringBackDaveTelgheder
2008-07-28 16:01:33

Define clutch? He’s hitting .238 on the season and hits slightly better with RISP. Part of the low RBI total is he is walked with guys on base, the other part is he does have a low average.

 
Comment by krispy644
2008-07-28 16:10:26

like I said. .244 with RISP. that is not good. we all know he walks. too low for the average. not clutch! anyone can tell you that.

Ryan Howard: 30 homers 94 rbis, .238 avg. however he is hitting .323 with RISP. THAT’S CLUTCH!

why am I comparing the two? cause they both Walk and K a lot.

 
Comment by Coolpapabell
2008-07-28 16:16:56

Absolutely. The fact that the Mets really evaluate “clutchness” is very worrisome. Clutchness is the hardest thing to evaluate partly because it might not exist.

If all it took was Parnell, Evans and or Murphy. I would do it. Plus .900 OPS helps an outfield that trots Marlon Anderson out consitently.

 
 
Comment by DaveSchneck
2008-07-28 15:56:46

“Dunn consistently leads the league in homers every year”

Good job buddy. Dunn has, in fact, NEVER led the league in homeruns. He has, however, led the league 3 times in strikeouts.

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Comment by BringBackDaveTelgheder
2008-07-28 15:59:28

A stupid comment. It’s immaterial, he is among the league leaders every year and only Arod has more homers then him within the last 3 years.

Ryan Howard strikes out a ton and can play on my team any day of the week.

 
Comment by mrose
2008-07-28 16:02:38

I think most people’s points aren’t that he can’t hit HR’s, but WHY should we give up more prospects for him? We can argue opinions on him until were blue in the face, but he strikes out, or walks, which is great, but the RISP stats don’t lie, hes not very good defensively and I just don’t see why we should give up prospects for a guy who may or may not help us.

If we knew Church wasn’t coming back, fine, but we don’t know and as some have mentioned, WHAT does Tatis have to do to get a shot around here?

 
Comment by dwright5_godsend
2008-07-28 16:04:46

Ok well you can have both of the strikeout, choke-artist kings on your team. Doesn’t anybody get it? It’s not always about power hitting, but timely hitting. If he’s batting .244 with RISP, doesn’t that throw up a red flag? He has hit 29 HR, and I’m willing to bet that at least 20 of them were meaningless. Same with Howard. Let’s see him step up and hit a HR with 2 on in the 9th, down by 1. It won’t happen.

 
Comment by BringBackDaveTelgheder
2008-07