Jul 29, 2014; Detroit, MI, USA; Chicago White Sox designated hitter Adam Dunn (44) watches as the ball he hit goes over the right field wall for a home run in the seventh inning against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports
After 14 seasons in Major League Baseball, Adam Dunn retired following the 2014 season.
There won’t be a statue built outside of any ballpark in his honor. He won’t get too many Hall of Fame votes once eligible. Over time, Dunn may become just another slugger from an era when everyone seemed to hit home runs. Even though he didn’t make his debut until 2001, the crossover with careers of the dominant sluggers from the 1990s will link Dunn to them in conversation.
We know better, though, than to mention Dunn in the same breath as Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa. He never had the hype or the asterisks they now presumably carry with them.
Yes Dunn was only an All-Star twice. And yes, he never cracked the top-20 in MVP voting. Dunn hit 462 home runs and never led the league in that category for a single season. Six times he hit 40 or more, but it was never enough to give home a home run title.
Dunn never even played in a postseason game. His only trip to the playoffs came in 2014 with the Oakland Athletics in the Wild Card game. Dunn was not in the starting lineup so his first and only view of a field in the postseason came from the bench. The Athletics lost and Dunn’s career came to a close.
As a rookie, Dunn quickly developed a reputation for being an “all or nothing” hitter. We came to expect a home run or strikeout from him in every at-bat. His first full season came in 2002, when Dunn hit 26 home runs and struck out 170 times. For the rest of his career, Dunn swung harder which led to more home runs and even more strikeouts. His career 2,379 strikeouts ranks third all-time. Only Reggie Jackson and Jim Thome went down on strikes more times than Dunn.
The one player Dunn compares to most in our minds, and according to Baseball-Reference’s player comparison, is Dave Kingman. Like Dunn, Kingman was capable of hitting 30-40 home runs on a yearly basis at the sacrifice of striking out very often. Kingman’s career average of .235 is just one point lower than Dunn’s .236. Kingman also fell about one season short of Dunn in home runs, hitting 442 of them.
Though many similarities exist, Dunn was a far better player than Kingman. The big difference between the two is the amount of walks each had. Kingman had a career .302 OBP. Only once was he able to draw over 60 walks in a season. Meanwhile, Dunn’s career on-base percentage is .364. There were eight seasons in Dunn’s career where he walked 100 or more times. Suddenly, the batting average is more forgivable as he made up for it by showing some discipline with the strike zone.
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Dunn’s ability to get on base with a walk in spite of his abysmal batting average makes him one of a kind. If not for the great OBP, Dunn probably wouldn’t have stuck around baseball for as long as he did. To put it in perspective, his .364 OBP is tied with Mark Teixeira and slightly better than Hall of Famers Craig Biggio, Ron Santo, and Pie Traynor.
To his credit, there’s nobody like Dunn around baseball anymore. No power hitters lack a batting average and make up for it with walks like he did. Pedro Alvarez of the Pittsburgh Pirates may be the closest everyday player with an “all or nothing” approach, but he is much more like Kingman than Dunn since he fails to draw walks.
Adam Dunn was special because he wasn’t a true “all or nothing” guy. He allowed a third outcome and put the pressure on opposing pitchers to actually throw him strikes—even if he often swung through them.
We may never see another player like Dunn again. A player like him requires some patience from the manager. Watching all of those strikeouts is frustrating and there certainly needs to be some hidden or inherent value from the hitter to remain in the lineup. Dunn gave that back in the form of walks.