Adam Dunn, meet David Letterman

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Adam Dunn’s most unusual season is an endless source of quirky statistical curiosities. Dunn launched two more bombs Friday night for a total of 38, with over five weeks still left in the season. Forty is obviously in sight, and fifty long balls is not out of the question. Yet our hero’s batting average remains precariously close to the Mendoza line.

After the jump, I’ll look at Adam’s season in context, using David Letterman’s famous statistical analysis tool, the Top 10 list.

First, lowest batting average in a 40 HR season.

Rk	Player	BA	HR	OPS+	Year	Age	Tm	G	R	RBI	BB	SO	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
	Adam Dunn	.204	38	118	2012	32	CHW	126	75	88	89	183	.334	.490	.824	*D3/7
1	Adam Dunn	.234	40	114	2006	26	CIN	160	99	92	112	194	.365	.490	.855	*7/3D
2	Adam Dunn	.236	40	131	2008	28	TOT	158	79	100	122	164	.386	.513	.898	*793/D
3	Jose Canseco	.237	46	114	1998	33	TOR	151	98	107	65	159	.318	.518	.836	*D79
4	Harmon Killebrew	.242	42	137	1959	23	WSH	153	98	105	90	116	.354	.516	.870	*5/7
5	Jay Buhner	.243	40	132	1997	32	SEA	157	104	109	119	175	.383	.506	.889	*9/D
6	Harmon Killebrew	.243	48	138	1962	26	MIN	155	85	126	106	142	.366	.545	.912	*7/3
7	Gorman Thomas	.244	45	138	1979	28	MIL	156	97	123	98	175	.356	.539	.895	*8/D
8	Greg Vaughn	.245	45	117	1999	33	CIN	153	104	118	85	137	.347	.535	.881	*7/D
9	Adam Dunn	.247	40	140	2005	25	CIN	160	107	101	114	168	.387	.540	.927	*73
10	Darrell Evans	.248	40	138	1985	38	DET	151	81	94	85	85	.356	.519	.875	*3D/5

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/28/2012.

Dunn already has 3 of the top 10 here and seems a shoo-in to displace himself at the top of this list.

Should Dunn finish strong and get to 50 HR, he would be in this company.

Rk	Player	BA	HR	OPS+	Year	Age	Tm	G	R	RBI	BB	SO	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
	Adam Dunn	.204	38	118	2012	32	CHW	126	75	88	89	183	.334	.490	.824	*D3/7
1	Jose Bautista	.260	54	164	2010	29	TOR	161	109	124	100	116	.378	.617	.995	*95/3D8
2	Andruw Jones	.263	51	136	2005	28	ATL	160	95	128	64	112	.347	.575	.922	*8
3	Roger Maris	.269	61	167	1961	26	NYY	161	132	141	94	67	.372	.620	.993	*98
4	Greg Vaughn	.272	50	156	1998	32	SDP	158	112	119	79	121	.363	.597	.960	*7/D
5	Mark McGwire	.274	58	170	1997	33	TOT	156	86	123	101	159	.393	.646	1.039	*3
6	Cecil Fielder	.277	51	167	1990	26	DET	159	104	132	90	182	.377	.592	.969	*3D
7	Mark McGwire	.278	65	176	1999	35	STL	153	118	147	133	141	.424	.697	1.120	*3
8	Ken Griffey	.284	56	150	1998	28	SEA	161	120	146	76	121	.365	.611	.977	*8/D379
9	David Ortiz	.287	54	161	2006	30	BOS	151	115	137	119	117	.413	.636	1.049	*D3
10	Prince Fielder	.288	50	157	2007	23	MIL	158	109	119	90	121	.395	.618	1.013	*3/D
11	Sammy Sosa	.288	63	151	1999	30	CHC	162	114	141	78	171	.367	.635	1.002	*98

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/26/2012.

Even with a hot streak to end all hot streaks, seems almost certain Dunn would also reign atop this list as well.

What about OPS+ ? Dunn’s anemic BA can’t be helping there too much.

Rk	Player	OPS+	HR	Year	Age	Tm	G	R	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Tony Batista	102	41	2000	26	TOR	154	96	114	35	121	.263	.307	.519	.827	*5
2	Vinny Castilla	112	40	1996	28	COL	160	97	113	35	88	.304	.343	.548	.892	*5
3	Adam Dunn	114	40	2006	26	CIN	160	99	92	112	194	.234	.365	.490	.855	*7/3D
4	Jose Canseco	114	46	1998	33	TOR	151	98	107	65	159	.237	.318	.518	.836	*D79
5	Vinny Castilla	115	40	1997	29	COL	159	94	113	44	108	.304	.356	.547	.904	*5
6	Greg Vaughn	117	45	1999	33	CIN	153	104	118	85	137	.245	.347	.535	.881	*7/D
	Adam Dunn	118	38	2012	32	CHW	126	75	88	89	183	.204	.334	.490	.824	*D3/7
7	Tony Armas	121	43	1984	30	BOS	157	107	123	32	156	.268	.300	.531	.831	*8D/9
8	Jeff Burroughs	123	41	1977	26	ATL	154	91	114	86	126	.271	.362	.520	.882	*9
9	Ryan Howard	125	48	2008	28	PHI	162	105	146	81	199	.251	.339	.543	.881	*3/D
10	Andruw Jones	126	41	2006	29	ATL	156	107	129	82	127	.262	.363	.531	.894	*8/D

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/28/2012.

Yup, Dunn should make this list too … for the second time. The top two names here say everything you need to know about empty 40 HR seasons.

What about extra-base hits as a percentage of all hits?

Rk	Player	XBH	HR	OPS+	XBH%	Year	Age	Tm	G	R	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
6	Babe Ruth	119	59	238	58.3%	1921	26	NYY	152	177	171	145	81	.378	.512	.846	1.359	*78/13
1	Barry Bonds	107	73	259	68.6%	2001	36	SFG	153	129	137	177	93	.328	.515	.863	1.379	*7/D
5	Albert Belle	103	50	177	59.5%	1995	28	CLE	143	121	126	73	80	.317	.401	.690	1.091	*7/D
8	Babe Ruth	99	54	255	57.6%	1920	25	NYY	142	158	137	150	80	.376	.532	.847	1.379	*978/31
2	Jose Bautista	92	54	164	62.2%	2010	29	TOR	161	109	124	100	116	.260	.378	.617	.995	*95/3D8
4	Mark McGwire	91	70	216	59.9%	1998	34	STL	155	130	147	162	155	.299	.470	.752	1.222	*3
7	Willie Stargell	90	44	186	57.7%	1973	33	PIT	148	106	119	80	129	.299	.392	.646	1.038	*7
3	Mark McGwire	87	65	176	60.0%	1999	35	STL	153	118	147	133	141	.278	.424	.697	1.120	*3
10	Mark McGwire	85	58	170	57.4%	1997	33	TOT	156	86	123	101	159	.274	.393	.646	1.039	*3
9	Adam Dunn	77	40	140	57.5%	2005	25	CIN	160	107	101	114	168	.247	.387	.540	.927	*73
8	Adam Dunn	53	38	118	57.6%	2012	32	CHW	126	75	88	89	183	.204	.334	.490	.824	*D3/7

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/28/2012.

Hard to visualize as I had to manually calculate XBH% and therefore couldn’t sort by it. Anyway, the rank is how these guys would look if sorted by XBH%. Dunn is right there, albeit near the bottom. He’ll have to stay ahead of Mark McGwire’s 1997 mark to remain in the top 10.

Dunn is currently leading the AL in all 3 TTO components. Here’s how compares to the 40 HR crowd, first in strikeouts.

Rk	Player	SO	HR	OPS+	Year	Age	Tm	G	R	RBI	BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Mark Reynolds	223	44	127	2009	25	ARI	155	98	102	76	.260	.349	.543	.892	*53
2	Ryan Howard	199	48	125	2008	28	PHI	162	105	146	81	.251	.339	.543	.881	*3/D
3	Ryan Howard	199	47	144	2007	27	PHI	144	94	136	107	.268	.392	.584	.976	*3/D
4	Adam Dunn	195	46	147	2004	24	CIN	161	105	102	108	.266	.388	.569	.956	*73/D
5	Adam Dunn	194	40	114	2006	26	CIN	160	99	92	112	.234	.365	.490	.855	*7/3D
6	Ryan Howard	186	45	141	2009	29	PHI	160	105	141	75	.279	.360	.571	.931	*3/D
7	Jim Thome	185	49	170	2001	30	CLE	156	101	124	111	.291	.416	.624	1.040	*3/D
	Adam Dunn	183	38	118	2012	32	CHW	126	75	88	89	.204	.334	.490	.824	*D3/7
8	Jim Thome	182	47	154	2003	32	PHI	159	111	131	111	.266	.385	.573	.958	*3/D
9	Cecil Fielder	182	51	167	1990	26	DET	159	104	132	90	.277	.377	.592	.969	*3D
10	Ryan Howard	181	58	167	2006	26	PHI	159	104	149	108	.313	.425	.659	1.084	*3

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/28/2012.

No surprise here. Barring injury, hard to imagine Dunn won’t make the top of this list.

Rk	Player	BB	HR	OPS+	Year	Age	Tm	G	R	RBI	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Barry Bonds	232	45	263	2004	39	SFG	147	129	101	41	.362	.609	.812	1.422	*7/D
2	Barry Bonds	198	46	268	2002	37	SFG	143	117	110	47	.370	.582	.799	1.381	*7/D
3	Barry Bonds	177	73	259	2001	36	SFG	153	129	137	93	.328	.515	.863	1.379	*7/D
4	Babe Ruth	170	41	239	1923	28	NYY	152	151	131	93	.393	.545	.764	1.309	97/83
5	Mark McGwire	162	70	216	1998	34	STL	155	130	147	155	.299	.470	.752	1.222	*3
6	Ted Williams	162	43	191	1949	30	BOS	155	150	159	48	.343	.490	.650	1.141	*7
7	Barry Bonds	151	42	188	1996	31	SFG	158	122	129	76	.308	.461	.615	1.076	*7/8
8	Babe Ruth	150	54	255	1920	25	NYY	142	158	137	80	.376	.532	.847	1.379	*978/31
9	Jeff Bagwell	149	42	164	1999	31	HOU	162	143	126	127	.304	.454	.591	1.045	*3/D
10	Barry Bonds	148	45	231	2003	38	SFG	130	111	90	58	.341	.529	.749	1.278	*7/D

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/28/2012.

Sorry, Adam. Finally found a list you won’t be cracking. You’re just a piker in this crowd.

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Voomo Zanzibar

12 years ago

Career highs so far this year:
HR% (7)
Pit/PA (4.41)

_______________________________
JA,

XBH% can be found in ‘more stats’:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dunnad01-bat.shtml#batting_ratio::none

Voomo Zanzibar

12 years ago

Reply to Voomo Zanzibar

Or maybe you knew that, but wanted the number after the decimal point, too.

Author

Doug

12 years ago

Reply to Voomo Zanzibar

Unfortunately, it’s not one of the stats offered with PI, so can’t get it in a search results list.

Richard Chester

12 years ago

He also has a shot at joining a very exclusive club of batters (PA>200) with more home runs than singles in a season. Currently he has 38 HR and 39 singles. Only Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire (four times) have done that.

Hartvig

12 years ago

Reply to Richard Chester

I thought for certain that Rob Deer had also done that. He did, but he only had 50 at bats in that season (his final one)- 2 singles, 3 doubles & 4 home runs. Closest he came in a relatively full season was 32 home runs/ 44 singles.

brp

12 years ago

He’s not even slugging .500; does he have a shot at the most HR in a season with SLG < .500? I see he had a .490 SLG in 2006 and 40 HR thanks to your top list… is that the high mark?

brp

12 years ago

Reply to brp

Well, PI shows he’s the only person with 40 HR and SLG <.500, so there you go.

mosc

12 years ago

So what are you trying to say? Worst hitter ever to hit that many home runs in a season? The guy is trying his damnedest to be a league average player with the league lead in home runs. I get he’s a statistical oddity but he’s neither really good nor really bad overall and despite last season he’s one of the more consistent baseball players in recent years. I don’t know, half of this sounds like making fun of the guy and the other half saying how awesome it is. It’s more fitting that Adam Dunn receive average attention for… Read more »

Author

Doug

12 years ago

Reply to mosc

Just statistical oddities, mosc. And the readers here (brp@5, Joesph@11) have found some more.

Dunn doesn’t really go about his business like most (or almost all) other players, so it’s not too surprising there are so many such oddities.

GrandyMan

12 years ago

Reply to mosc

His player page suggests he is actually below average this year, owing largely to his poor defense. Offensively, with a positional adjustment, he probably is about average.

kzuke

12 years ago

Reply to GrandyMan

what components would be used to estimate oWAA with positional adjustment? RAA – Rfield?

Jimbo

12 years ago

At the rate he’s going, when he gets to 500 career homers his career avg might be around .235

Jimbo

12 years ago

And hard to believe he was a .304 hitter in the minors.

Joseph

12 years ago

I just noticed that Dunn is leading the league in walks right now. His OBP is about .334. Anyone able to find the lowest OBP for the player who led the league in BB?

Richard Chester

12 years ago

Reply to Joseph

Miller Huggins, in 1907, led the league with 83 BB with an OBP of .346. That’s the lowest I could find. The current NL leader is Dan Uggla at .341.

Joseph

12 years ago

Given that Dunn has 13 more BB than the 2nd player, he is likely to lead the league. And yet his OBP is only .331. A new record!

Author

Doug

12 years ago

Reply to Joseph

The only player with 90+ BB and a lower OBP than Dunn this year is Mark McGwire in 1991, 93 walks and .330 OBP (.201 BA).

The lowest OBP for a player with 100+ BB is Eddie Lake in 1947 with .343 OBP (.211 BA) on a whopping 120 BB.

Richard Chester

12 years ago

Reply to Doug

Lake finished third in BB in 1947 behind Williams (162) and Roy Cullenbine (137). otherwise he would have been the BB leader with the lowest OBP. Cullenbine set a record that year for most walks in a player’s final season.

Jimbo

12 years ago

I’d like to see 50 home runs with a .199 avg please.

Pat O'Dougherty

12 years ago

I was thinking recently about a hypothetical player who only hit home runs or struck out. Trying to figure out how many home runs he would need to hit in order to be worthy to play in the Major Leagues. By my analysis, such a player would only need to hit 67 home runs these days (and strikeout his other 600 plate appearances) to earn himself a job in the Major Leagues.

GrandyMan

12 years ago

Reply to Pat O'Dougherty

Assuming 650 plate appearances, I figured out that about 95 HR would be necessary. 95 HR and 555 SO results in an OPS of .731. Assuming average defensive capabilities, this 95-HR hitter could be a replacement player. These days, a .731 OPS player with average defensive skills could probably be a starter (i.e., average player), but I set my OPS threshold a little high for two reasons: 1) On-base percentage is considered to be more important than slugging percentage, for reasons I don’t quite understand. Since this player would have a very low OBP, the overall OPS statistic needs to… Read more »

Editor

John Autin

12 years ago

Reply to Pat O'Dougherty

Pat, how did you approach that? I find it very hard to believe that a .100 OBP would be above replacement level, even if all the times on base were HRs.

Pat O'Dougherty

12 years ago

Reply to John Autin

A simple analysis. Perhaps an oversimple one. I checked to see what the poorest team run totals were in the last couple of years. A handful of teams scored less than 600 runs. So a team made up of nine “67-homer-rest-strikeout-guys” would score 603 runs. In other words, the 2010 and 2011 Mariners would have been better off with these guys, than with the team they actually played. I think though I was wrong to reference a total plate appearance and allude to any kind of OBP. A team of these type of players would probably only each get 550… Read more »

Joseph

12 years ago

Reply to Pat O'Dougherty

Can you do the analysis again, but include an average number of walks? Even the worst players get walked sometimes.

Pat O'Dougherty

12 years ago

Reply to Joseph

Well my analysis is pretty simple when it comes to home runs only. We know that this guy will score exactly 67 runs. Anybody know what the average men on base per plate appearance is for a eighth or ninth hole hitter? if it’s .25, then my guy should get about 84 rbi (67 due to his homers, and 17 due to the men on base when he hit ’em). Again, it seems to me that this guy would do better than many starters on recent Mariners teams, and probably do better than many team’s eighth and ninth hole hitters.… Read more »

Richard Chester

12 years ago

Reply to Pat O'Dougherty

Here is another crude method to figure the necessary number of HR. If you believe in WAR you can use the Rbat calculation. Rbat is a major constituent of WAR and represents the number of runs a player is better or worse than the average hitter. Rbat = 0 is average. I recently blogged on Baseball-Reference and questioned exactly how Rbat is calculated. I received a response from a fellow who goes by the name of Dr. Doom. He replied that it is a linear weights calculation. He then guessed at the values of the weights which were: 0.3 for… Read more »

Pat O'Dougherty

12 years ago

Reply to Richard Chester

So, that would be for an average player. My calculation was for someone to just be good enough to deserve a starting job in the major leagues (i.e good enough to replace the worst of the 254 positional or DH starters in the major leagues). So if your calculation got you 85 hrs to be an average player, does my analysis of 67 seem reasonable to you for a guy to earn a job? I guess by your calculations, you would need to figure out the average rbat for the bottom 20 or so of the 254 hitting jobs in… Read more »

Richard Chester

12 years ago

Reply to Pat O'Dougherty

Pat: Going back to your post 16 a player who hits 67 HR and strikes out 600 times would calculate to an Rbat of -56. That was exceeded (negatively) only once, -60, by a guy named Levey in 1933. Of course small changes in the coefficients I used could have significant effect on Rbat. Like I said it is a crude calculation, just to get a ballpark estimate. Also 600 is a lot of outs. The most I’ve found is 514 by Horace Clarke in 1970.

Lawrence Azrin

12 years ago

Reply to Richard Chester

Richard,

I am not sure what your source for “most outs in a season” is, as B-R lists Clarke with 542 total outs in 1970, which is third on the single-season list. Omar Moreno is first, with 560 for the 1980 Pirates.

Did you mean batting outs, not including OOB (outs made on baserunning)?

You’re right in that’s a lot of outs.

Richard Chester

12 years ago

Reply to Richard Chester

#37
Lawrence: I was unaware that you could search for outs on the PI. I subtracted hits from AB to generate my numbers, in other words batting outs. When I say “I’ve found…..” it means that I am not sure if it is a record.
It’s always good to learn something new.

birtelcom

12 years ago

Adam Dunn has a career OPS+ of 126 over about 7,100 PAs. Don Mattingly finished his career with about 7,700 PAs and an OPS+ of 127. Using b-ref’s “Runs Created” formula, Dunn has created 1,169 runs in his career, one more than Mattingly at 1,168. Using the “Neutralized Batting” tables at b-ref to get slash line numbers that are neutralized for league environment and home park scoring levels, Dunn’s neutralized career slash numbers to date are .366 OBP/.495 SLG/.861 OPS while Mattingly’s were .365 OBP/.478 SLG/.843. So Dunn may be one of the all-time freakish hitters in how he accomplishes… Read more »

Joseph

12 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

I don’t think anyone said Dunn is not a good player. Or is that the point of this thread? Ages 23 through 29, it may seem incredible, but on average his traditional stats are not so off those of Harmon Killebrew: 642 R, 271 Hr, 663 RBI, 747 BB, .248 BA, .382 OBP, .525 SLG, 1911 TB to 622 R, 286 HR, 715 RBI, 611 BB, .263 BA, .373 OPB, .546 SLG, 1950 TB Of course, because the game was different, those translate into much different numbers for WAR. Is Dunn Killebrew? No, but I think he has had some… Read more »

tag

12 years ago

Reply to Joseph

I will say that Dunn is not a good player. He is an above-average hitter, but he is a far below-average baserunner and fielder. When he wasn’t hidden in the DH spot, he flirted with being league average but usually, I think, fell below that mark because of his abysmal defense and poor baserunning.

Dunn to me is basically a cartoon. A semi-entertaining and -valuable one, especially in the AL, but the walks simply don’t compensate for his subpar slugging percentage. And watching all those strikeouts just gets old fast.

Paul E

12 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

btc:
Thanks for the comparison to the Yankee legend. Mattingly sure was loved by everyone – not just Yankees’ fans. I don’t think Adam Dunn ever got THAT kind of admiration. That image of the .300 hitter carries a lot of weight with fans in general.

In light of his relatively low BB totals, if Mattingly doesn’t ruin his back, I have to believe he would have gotten awfully close to 3,000 hits, 400 HR’s and 1,800 RBI…..and a first-ballot HoF’er

Max

12 years ago

Even Dave Kingman winced at some of those numbers. The only thing that kept him off any of these lists is he usually hit in the mid to high 30’s and his only 40 home run season was actually quite productive (for him).

Author

Doug

12 years ago

Reply to Max

Just for you, Max. Lowest career BA for 400 HR club. Rk Player BA HR OPS+ From To Age G PA R RBI OBP SLG OPS 1 Dave Kingman .236 442 115 1971 1986 22-37 1941 7429 901 1210 .302 .478 .780 2 Adam Dunn .240 403 126 2001 2012 21-32 1697 7110 976 1010 .371 .502 .872 3 Darrell Evans .248 414 119 1969 1989 22-42 2687 10737 1344 1354 .361 .431 .792 4 Andruw Jones .255 433 111 1996 2012 19-35 2177 8620 1200 1285 .337 .487 .824 5 Harmon Killebrew .256 573 143 1954 1975 18-39 2435… Read more »

MikeD

12 years ago

Reply to Doug

I guess the downside for Dunn with this list is he’s mixed in with a lot of 1960s and 70s hitters, including Killebrew, Jackson, Evans, Schmidt and McCovey. Dunn’s BA is lower than Kingman’s in comparison to the times, but he’s a far more productive hitter because of his ability to draw walks, something Kingman never could do.

Doug

12 years ago

Reply to MikeD

Absolutely, Mike. As can be seen above, Dunn’s OBP is almost 23% higher than Kingman’s.

Kingman has 7th lowest career OBP among all players over 7000 PAs, though only Joe Carter (9th lowest) in the top 10 had comparable power (Carter finished at 396 HR).

Max

12 years ago

Reply to Doug

Wow, look at Andruw Jones’ OPS+ at a sub-Kingman level. That someone could do that is downright shocking.

Lawrence Azrin

12 years ago

#38/Richard,

“Outs Made” is listed directly in the Batting Leaderboards, under leaders. You don’t need to use P-I to look it up. Glad to be of assistance.

Well, at least you know that _someone_ is paying attention to everything that you write…

Richard Chester

12 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

Thanks, Lawrence. There were times when I began to wonder.

Lawrence Azrin

12 years ago

Reply to Richard Chester

Glad to be of assistance.