Adam Dunn or Paul Konerko – who was the better player?
Well, Adam Dunn‘s fourteen-year career has culminated without the slugger playing in a single postseason game, and while that will inevitably be a fun trivia question down the road, it should not take away from the fact that the left-handed hitter had a pretty great career.
In fact, his career 22.7 fWAR and 123 wRC+ are strikingly compatible to his ex-teammate, Paul Konerko, whom some believe is a future Hall of Famer. He, too, played his final big-league season in 2014, ending his career with a 24.8 fWAR and 118 wRC+. For some unexplained reason, however, there are calls for Konerko to be inducted to the Hall, whereas Dunn is viewed upon as just some one-tooled player who accomplished nothing other than knocking a few balls out of the park.
That is far from the truth, and Dunn is better offensively than Konerko any way you slice it. Even if you don’t have faith in the stat wRC+, or, all the more likely, don’t comprehend it, you can evidently see within the players’ stat lines that Dunn is the better hitter. For the record, below are the hitters’ respective clips.
Adam Dunn: .237 AVG/.364 OBP/.490 SLG
Paul Konerko: .279 AVG/.354 OBP/.486 SLG
Dunn edges Konerko in both on-base and slugging percentage, while Paul has the advantage in batting average. Batting average, though, is a flawed stat that equates a single the same worth as a double, triple, and home run, and completely disregards walks. Therefore, it is irrefutable Dunn has been the better offensive player of the two.
Despite what the BBWAA might have you believe, however, there is more to baseball than just hitting. A position player also has to field and run the bases. Admittedly, neither one really excels at the the other two facets of a position player’s job. With that said, Konerko is the superior of the two from a defensive standpoint. Dunn, when he was not given the luxury of being a DH, amassed a horrific -103 DRS (defensive runs saved) between right field, left field, and first base. Konerko, on the other hand, will finish his career with a -37 DRS, which isn’t good but compared to Adam Dunn he looks like Albert Pujols – in his prime, of course.
So, yeah, the defense advantage goes to Konerko. But from a base running perspective, Dunn actually has been better by the numbers. Based on BsR, he (-23.8 career BsR) has been considerably superior than Konerko (-69.0 career BsR). This surprised me a bit, but Konerko did play four more seasons than Dunn. Those four years of sub-par base running built up, hence why the gap is so significant. I will say, though, that the difference is so notable that it is plausible to conclude Dunn is, indeed, a smarter (better) base runner than Konerko. Out of laziness, I am not going to go in-depth with the intricacies of the numbers, but just from looking at the two one can see Dunn has been of more value running the bases.
Paul Konerko is probably the better player; I am not arguing otherwise. All I am saying is the the difference between the two ex-White Sox is not substantial, and if one (Konerko) is getting traction behind a possible Hall of Fame-bid, well, then so should the other.