So Dave has been saying, for thirty years, that "the Yankees can put some crooked numbers on you before you blink an eye." A Hall of Fame signature line. Meaning what? (Answer at bottom.)
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As most know, Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game and then immediately threw five perfect innings to begin his next game.
What are the odds of a pitcher like Mark Buehrle retiring 45 consecutive hitters? Well, giving him the too-generous assumption that only 30% of all batters get on base against him, the odds against 45-for-45 are still over 1 in 10 million.
The number of plate appearances in the history of the American League, since 1876? About 7 million.
Nice symmetry, don't you think?
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A lot of 'impossible' things happen in baseball, because the people out there aren't Strat-O cards. Nobody's rolling dice as the pitcher takes his stretch.
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Adam Dunn, who is age 29, is hitting 280/400/570 in a pitcher's park, a 153 OPS+.
He is having the age-26 Ken Griffey Jr's 1996 season. (Junior hit in the Kingdome that year, of course. Its RF wall would literally be on the grass in Safeco.)
Players who had career OPS+ in this range include:
Joe DiMaggio and Hank Aaron - 155
Manny Ramirez - 155
Frank Robinson - 154
Honus Wagner - 150
Jim Thome and Vlad Guerrero - 147
But perhaps most to the point, here are the career OPS+'s of a few locals:
Edgar - 147
ARod - 147
Junior - 137
Russ Branyan - 134 (this year)
Yes, we know that we are comparing Dunn's season to others' careers. As Anton Ego would say, we're just providing a sense of perspective here. :- ) Dunn IS NOW hitting like .... well, like an inner-circle HOF'er. True, the inner-circle HOF'er did this for twelve or fifteen years.
Dunn will probably only do it for a few more years. Put him in Safeco, a park that radically favors him, and you can expect 140-160 OPS's for the next three years. Offensively, that's equal to Edgar, ARod and Junior.
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Ken Griffey Jr. in his career, had three (3) seasons in which his OPS+ was higher than Dunn's right now.
In fact, the Seattle Junior might be the ideal offensive comparison to the 2009 Adam Dunn: very good OBP and sky-high SLG, from the left side of the plate.
Dunn doesn't play center field, but the 26-year-old Griffey would have been an okay DH, I think.
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Edgar, in his prime, was a good notch better offensively than Dunn in 2009: he had a rock-hard 160 OPS+, and it was based on the more valuable OBP.
But Dunn's 2009 is as good as, say, Edgar's 1999 and 2000 seasons were. Edgar had more OBP, but Dunn has more four-base hits. BB's put more numbers on RC/27 formulas, but studies have been dunn showing that for the same OPS, extra HR's put more runs on actual ML scoreboards.
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Russ Branyan's OPS+ is 134 and falling. Dunn's is 153 and rising. Yet we think of a Russ Branyan signing as saber-literate and think of a Dunn acquisition as something for the P-I chat board. ;- )
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Right now, Adam Dunn is turning in a season worthy of Junior in his prime, or Edgar in his mid-30's. Dunn isn't *quite* the offensive equal of those guys, but gentlemen, he is close enough for government work. Neither Griffey, nor Edgar, nor ARod, would have been one whit disappointed to post Adam Dunn's 2009 season. It would fit onto their baseball cards very nicely.
What would this ballclub, playing in this park, do to get the young Junior playing DH for them for two or three years?
I'll take three,
Dr D
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* Crooked numbers as opposed to straight 1's on the scoreboard.
...the Mariner offense is now severely handicapped again. Beltre out for a long time, maybe permanently. Wilson on the shelf maybe as much as a couple of weeks. Just when I start to enjoy Mariner at bats, we run into a buzz saw of three consecutive nasty good left handed pitchers, two of our infielders go on the DL and we score 3 runs in three days.
Awesome.
.... or, right before they put your lights out :- )
THIS night, right here, is what I would consider the M's lowest point since May.
Wok deserves to catch a break. He's got the M's fighting hammer-and-tongs for 14 innings a night. Can't he get a rookie to come up and wow him, or something?
The DL has been a boil on his backside the whole summer. The man deserves a medal.
Dunn is good, but his BABIP is .348 this year vs a career .295 clip. Hes having a pretty standard Adam Dunn season looking at the peripherals. I think he'd be more or less a Branyan type hitter in the AL. Hes very good, but hes not prime-Griffey .
Still, the Ms need a 35-40 HR-hitter at DH like nothing else. If the Nats throw him on waivers I'd claim him, but theres no way I'd give up any meaningful prospects for him at this point in the season. Buying high on him wouldn't be a good idea considering that his OPS spike isn't skill driven.
But close enough for government work. :- )
"PRIME" Junior, which is the peak you used for comparision, had four seasons, from age 23 to 27 (excluding the injury year), in which he generated 9.0 - 9.5 runs per 27 outs. ....
"SEATTLE" Junior 1998-99, which is the basis I used above, ran 8.0 - 8.2 runs per 27 lines, with 145 OPS+'s.
I'm not saying that Dunn 2009 compared the best Junior ever did. I'm saying that his season would fit nicely onto a Junior card -- say, as his 7th- or 8th-best season. That leaves us with a pretty good feel for what Adam Dunn means to a lineup.
Absolutely I'd expect his BABIP to drop back -- though not all the way to career norms, if he is in fact hitting his prime right now. On the other hand, I would expect Safeco to favor him more than Nationals Park does.
Drop back to where? Dunn already had 141-146 OPS+ seasons in Cincy, and his batting eye is better now than it was then.
His BABIP is worth considering, but in the big picture, you're talking about a hulking 250-lb. lefty who hits 40+ home runs every season, whose eye is getting better and whose performances are improving.
His 2010-11 seasons won't match Junior's best ever, but I expect them to fit into Junior's top 10 seasons.
And sort it by OPS+, you get an interesting picture of Junior's career.
I think if you do that, you'll agree that Dunn's 2010-11 seasons -- IF THEY WERE IN SAFECO -- would fit nicely into Junior's career, excluding Junior's three best years.
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For the record, I think Russ Branyan has a fair ways to go, before he's equated to Adam Dunn.
promo...
Wakamatsu is impressive. Just like every manager, he has his warts and blind spots but he is a bona-fide Leader of Men. It's tough to describe what that means until you've worked under someone that has great leadership skills.
Some guys just carry themselves a certain way ... competence and vision and people skills and all the rest of it ... and some guys just control a room.
The man has a great shot to become the Walter Alston of the next 20 years.
Thats just the thing though. Hes NOT getting better. Hes exactly the same guy hes been the past few years. Hes more likely to get worse than better, although hes a good bet for another couple years to maintain.
Considering the league switch and moving to a non-hitter's park I'd bet on the under on 40 HRs. 35-40 Hrs the next couple years is a good bet.
In 2008, his EYE went from its usual .67 to 1.0.
Now in 2009, his EYE went down while his PX surged. (HR and 2B rock-steady despite the transition from a small park to a big one.)
I thought that was supposed to be the classic Shandler pattern for a guy moving into his peak? He starts reading the pitches to perfection, and then he starts launching them.
Its not backed up by actual plate discipline improvement (more balls were thrown to hit last year), or this year either. Hes the same guy.
We also don't have park factors yet on the Nationals' new stadium. Its hard to tell. His IsoP is pretty much at a career-norm mark.