Loading ...Our favorite sportswriter, Joe Posnanski, has weighed in on Adam Dunn, sort of. If nothing else, it’s an interesting way to look at baseball fandom:
I find all this to be a little bit more than an interesting side note — I think that, in many ways, Dunn and Bloomquist represent opposing philosophies about baseball.
I think the Adam Dunn philosophy is built around what you can see, what is measurable, what is cold and hard and real. With Dunn, you get a titanic power hitter who plays every day, hits long home runs (exactly 40 ever year — no more, no less), walks a lot, strikes out every three or four at bats, plays zero positions, doesn’t have much speed and doesn’t do those little things that show off his great love of the game. The Dunn Way is the Michael Corleone Way, strictly business.
The Willie Bloomquist philosophy, meanwhile, is built around passion, what is intangible, this sense that if you can get a bunch of guys who KNOW HOW to play the game, who LOVE the game, who HAVE BASEBALLS BEATING IN THEIR CHESTS, then you can do wonderful things (even if the players can’t hit worth a damn). With Bloomquist you have an astonishingly weak hitter who plays occasionally, cracked ONE EXTRA BASE HIT last year*, doesn’t get on base, plays seven defensive positions, can really run and gets his uniform so dirty that, according to his jarringly lengthy Wikipedia entry, he has over the years been called (mostly in jest/derision) Wee Willie, Ballgame, The Ignitor, Effin, WFB, The Spork, Princess Willie, Willie Boom-Boom and, by Angels announcer Rex Hudler, The Mighty Bloomquist.
(snip)
And my point is that I believe every baseball fan, at his/her core, leans Dunn or Bloomquist.* People who believe that on-base percentage and slugging are the most significant things, that defense and speed are overrated, that what matters is what you do and not how you look doing it lean heavily Dunn. The New York Yankees have leaned heavily Dunn: Get on base, slug the ball, don’t worry too much about catching it. And so on.
At the same time, there are plenty of people in the game and in the stands who believe that you win by doing the little things, by playing defense and running out ground balls and playing the game with passion every day. They lean heavily Bloomquist. The Minnesota Twins, for instance, lean Bloomquist.. The Twins run and catch the ball and they have not worried too much about power or on-base percentage. This, no doubt, frustrates the heck out of a lot of Dunn-leaning Twins fans.
Lots more in the original post, so go over and read the entire thing. I think it’s an interesting theory. And what’s great is that both philosophies have won. That’s part of what I love about baseball. There are many, many ways to enjoy the game.
A Bloomquist is exciting and fun to root for. A Bloomquist makes you feel good about baseball and about being a fan. A Bloomquist is like me (except a lot more talented).
A Dunn wins more games.
You need both types of players.
GM DM is making every Reds GM look like Billy Beane in comparison.
2 years $3 million for Willie “Replacement Level” Bloomquist?
Good lord.
“A Dunn wins more games”
A Dunn scores more runs. Wins only follow if the team’s pitching supports the run production. See Reds, 2005: #1 in the NL in both runs scored (820) and runs allowed (889.)
Every once in a while you get a player who combines both. I hope we have found one in our young Jay Bruce.
I hear you preach, you need a good combination.
A Dunn is vital part of an offense, and a Bloomquist is a spark off the bench as a late inning replacement to score from second on a base hit to take the lead. However, if your whole team is either one, you are not going to win.
Q: What about fans like me… That want players to have a passion for the game, but go about it in a business like manner… That can run, field there position, get on base and slg the ball????
I think what Joe Posnanski hits at is a perception that there is a war between the new guard (James’ sabermetrics) and the old guard (scouts).
I heard a terrific interview this weekend with Rob Neyer on Bob Costas’ radio program (I think it originally aired in June). Neyer, being a protege of James’, was asked about statistical information versus scouting information. While Neyer agreed that more information is available and GMs are relying heavily on that information, the dynamic is not one over the other.
This is essentially what I’ve been arguing for awhile. Stats are great but fail to show the entire picture. The reasons for less than desired statistical output can be the result of many things – mechanics, attitude, etc.
Also, defensive statistics are a generation behind offensive sabermetrics. There hasn’t been, until recently, as much statistical data to compare players so a scout’s impression is much more important. As a result, when it comes to defense, a scout’s impression probably means more.
Adam Dunn’s worth (despite a high slugging, high OBP, etc.) is brought down considerably because of his defense. Value for Dunn was 28.6 batting and -22.8 fielding as a LF. That translates to 1.9 value wins. While his salary was $13 million his worth was $8.7. I don’t think it is a surprise that teams are shying away from his asking price.
Bloomquist’s win values are at .03 making his value last year $1.2 million. I think a two year $3 million dollar deal supports that value.
In the end, if Dunn takes a play off, jogs one out, lets a ball fall in, his bat is so good that he can make up for it. Willie Bloomquist on the other hand gives the impression that if he takes a play off, if he doesn’t go 100 mph his win value dips from 0.3 to 0.00 and he is out of work.
When I look at Dunn, I get the impression that he is satisfied with being the player he is i.e. a DH. He gives the impression that he doesn’t care because he does take a play off, he does jog out a single, he does let balls fall in. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t work as hard as anyone else. Everyone has a bad day at the office and that doesn’t mean he isn’t passionate. What is infuriating about Dunn is, that if he played the game the way Willie Bloomquist plays the game, he could be one of the all-time greats. Now, he is just a poor man’s Jim Thome.
If Dunn played the game the way Bloomquist plays it, he’d be out of the game by now or at least real soon. Guys his size aren’t meant to go all out and run hard. If you are that big and you run hard at every opportunity, your knees will be shot sooner rather than later.
This is not to say that Dunn is perfect the way he is, far from it. He could definitely be better defensively and perhaps his strategy at the plate isn’t always the best, but he’s not going to be a go getter like Freel or Bloomquist. It’s just not practical.
That’s why players from both ends of the spectrum are needed to compete for a championship. It’s not “who’s better” as often as it’s “who’s better in a given situation”. It’s all about matchups and strategies. First off, let’s establish that comparing a part time utility guy to an established starter of 150 games a year is a little like comparing your number one starter to a loogy just because they are both pitchers. So I am assuming that we are just comparing styles of play. Fine. Situation: bottom of the ninth, down by one, two outs, nobody on. Call: Dunn. If Dunn gets on, he is immediately pulled for Bloomquist who pinch runs and stays in as a defensive replacement if he scores. There are times you would go with the lifetime .280 guy, there are times you go with the 40 HR guy. Asking Dunn to suicide squeeze and/or steal bases to get into scoring position would lead to torn tendons, ESPN videos of shame, and no runs. Asking Bloomquist to swing for the fences would lead to a lot of warning track pop outs (hear that, Corey?)and an excrutiatingly long season. Personally, I love to watch utility guys like Bloomquist take over a game. It’s satisfying for an ‘average Joe’ like me (even though his college playing days, especially the CWS success, shows that he didn’t just get to the show by being lucky and getting dirty a lot. He has good baseball talent). But I like to win games more. That is why you put guys in different parts of the lineup, to accentuate their strengths and downplay their weaknesses. Yes, the BRM had the hustle of Rose, Griffey, and Morgan at the top of the lineup, but that followed with the power of Foster, Bench, and Perez. The combination leads to 6 runs a game, and that leads to playing in the fall. I am one that prefers scouting reports to stat sheets, but a proper evaluation of a player cannot be accomplished without both. Just like a championship cannot be had without a balance of both styles.
I think you’ve confused speed with hustle. Just because Dunn can’t get to a ball doesn’t mean he doesn’t try.
Today’s game, and it seems the MLB teams are doing this for the most part, requires scouting and stats analysis.
Stats analysis can project the future, but it takes playing time to gather the evidence that used to evaluate and project.
Good scouts can notice changes (advances or declines) in a player’s game by viewing firsthand or by video. Good scouts and coaches can detect hitches or bad mechanics before they become readily apparent in the statistical column.
Sample size matters in analysis; and sometimes a hitting slump is just a matter of bad luck (hitting them where they are rather than ain’t). Sometimes it’s performance based…and that’s where scouts can detect a change before adversely affecting a team’s performance.
I’m tired of hearing about Adam Dunn. Let’s turn the page. Let him go to the Nats to be with his friend Kearns.
i agree with most of these comments… i’ve always been of the opinion that you need both guys on your team for various reasons (situational, “chemistry”, etc.) and i agree that you probably will fail if you go with one style over the other too heavily.
the interesting part to me is that for most fans, if you are going to fail either way, a team full of ryan freels, jerry hairstons and willy taverases might be more fun to watch than a team full of adam dunns, pat burells and jeremy giambis. well, unless you are in to unintentional comedy, because i think i may have just assembled the most inept defensive outfield of all time there.
i’ve always found the stats vs. scouts debate to be a bit overblown. in my opinion you have to have both. statistics are primarily encyclopedic, they are not an oracle. they will tell you what already happened. and, in a lot of ways, you can use them to make predictions… but ultimately, you’re going to need your own eyes to say “yeah, that guy doesn’t condition properly and he’ll fall apart when he’s 32″ or, “yeah, that kid didn’t know the strike zone his first 7 years of pro ball, but i watched him last year and it finally clicked for him around the all-star break… this year he’ll be better if he doesn’t forget what he learned”, etc.
so, yeah. i’m tired of hearing about adam dunn, too. i’m especially going to be tired of it when i see his name on the ticker with a hr and 3 runs scored right after watching the reds lose 3-1 or 4-2 (again).
I’ve never read or heard a single “stats guy” say that player personnel decision should be based only on stats. In fact, they all advocate a mix of statistical analysis and scouting. The only place that this debate of “stats only” vs “scouts only” exists is among fans on blogs and radio talk shows.
Ironically, the best player available free agent player that could help this team offensively, is Adam Dunn. But he’s left-handed, which is an unexplicable excuse of the front office. I’d also imagine that the bridge between the front office and Dunn is pretty badly damaged at the moment.
May be we could sign Dunn and trade for Austin Kearns? Have Kearns in CF and use Taveras as a pinch runner and late inning defensive replacement.
Would that clog the bases enough? It would give us a right handed hitter and Dickerson/Hopper would give us real depth…
Posnanski is an excellent writer. I think I could tell you either way which side of the Dunn/Bloomquist ledger 90% of the folks that comment here are on.
Here;s the problem with Dunn. He was the leader of the team. Griff even said it to the press: THis is Adam Dunn’s team now. So when Dunn is loafing, taking plays off, pulling pranks, and bragging to the clubhouse about how much money his new contract is going to be worth, it has a psychological affect on the attitude of the entire club. Is this the kind of leader anyone wants? Dunn is blessed with extraordinary power so maybe he can afford to loaf, if that’s what keeps him in the lineup for 160 games, but he won’t hold his teammates accountable for thier shortcomings. I remember reading Pete Rose’s autobiography and he described how he was disgusted by Concepcion’s work ethic and how he got on him to work on his hitting. THat’s the kind of leader we want.
“So when Dunn is loafing, taking plays off, pulling pranks, and bragging to the clubhouse about how much money his new contract is going to be worth”
Other than pulling pranks, when did he do all this?
When did pulling pranks have a negative impact on the clubhouse? It must have been a real clubhouse downer to make Bruce give autogtaphed copies of the Reds spring training newspaper to Dusty Baker.
“and doesn’t do those little things that show off his great love of the game”
this is the kind of thing that gets me, if he doesn’t show it, how do you know its there?? Just because you guys want to think it doesnt make it so.
You guys need to get over Dunn. You managed to get over Hamilton and Griffey, now get over Dunn. Move on.
If I ran a baseball team, I’d pair up two guys in the radio booth who otherwise get along but fall on opposite sides of the stats-versus-scouts divide. That’d lead to some fascinating discussions during rain delays, blowouts and pitching changes. Listeners might actually deepen their appreciation for the game.
It’d at least be more interesting than talking about what The Cowboy did on his day off.
Wow… some spirited conversation. I agree with what preach says, you need both types on a team. I just find it a lot easier, and more fun, to root for the scrappy Bloomquist-type of player. There are just some guys out there with a heck of a lot of natural ability that just don’t have to give it their all to play major league baseball. Things just come easier to them and although they are trying hard, it just doesn’t look that way for most spectators.
I think sometimes we look at guys like Boomquist, Ryan Freel, Pete Rose, or David Eckstein and see ourselves. We think, “man, if I just had that much heart and worked that hard, maybe I could have played major league baseball too.” I dunno, it may sound stupid, but people like that give us hope.