Peterson: The Reds Need More Hitters Like Dunn, Not Fewer

[missionhockey21]

I am really enjoying a lot of the content from CityBeat. Anywho, it's good to see that some Cincy writers can see the value of Dunn and can hopefully turn the tide in his favor amongst the fans, as like it or not, that does impact the front office to a certain extent when it comes to a potential big deal of 3-5 years for Dunn in the upcoming months.

The Reds Need More Hitters Like Dunn, Not Fewer

BY Bill Peterson | Posted 05/28/2008

Whatever happens, Adam Dunn is going to be fine. The Reds can sign him to another contract or not. If not, he goes to a ball club of his choice, perhaps his hometown Houston Astros, who don't have a spot for him at the moment, or the New York Yankees, where he could be a star as their designated hitter.
It's really up to the Reds to decide their direction.

By the way, a month after the Reds dumped Wayne Krivsky and moved Walt Jocketty into the general manager's office, do you notice the difference? The same players are on the ball club, the same players aren't, and the club, 9-12 before Jocketty, is 14-16 with him.

The only true difference is that we have no idea about the club's intentions. With Krivsky, we knew they were rebuilding, even if the ownership didn't. With Jocketty, we're still waiting to see.

The best guess right now is that Jocketty also is waiting to see.

The next moves for this club will be connected to front office perception concerning its chances this year, and that matter remains open. Although the Reds carried losing records for 41 straight days at the close of business on May 25, they also remained within 6 1/2 games of the NL Central lead.

If the Reds make a move up the standings in the next six weeks, they have to keep Dunn, especially after club owner Bob Castellini has made such a passionate statement about winning now when he fired Krivsky. But they should keep Dunn anyway.

Hitters like Dunn don't come along all that often. If he's not an elite hitter in the class of Albert Pujols or Alex Rodriguez, the natural comparisons with past sluggers like Rob Deer and Dave Kingman also are unavailing. At 28, Dunn already has more career homers (251) than Deer (230), and Kingman was an out maker, which Dunn certainly isn't.

Even in the two weakest areas of his game, his left field defense and his strikeouts, Dunn is improving this year. He'll still strike out about 125 times and he'll have his bad days in the field, but Reds fans who fixate on those flaws are missing a pretty good hitter.

The defense still can improve in time. As far as the strikeouts, Dunn produces well more than enough to make up for it. There's so much to like about him as a hitter that it's hard to rationalize the Reds letting him walk as a free agent after this season.

Nobody likes to see a lot of strikeouts, but it's part of Dunn's game and they're not going away. Because he's 6-foot-6, he has a big strike zone and there's a lot of room in there for pitchers to get him out. And he runs deep counts looking for pitches he can rip. He's also among the league leaders in walks every year, which is quite an achievement considering the size of his strike zone.

One also wants to cut Dunn slack on the strikeouts because he almost never grounds into double plays. From the day he came up in 2001, Dunn has grounded into exactly 52 double plays. Pujols, who also is 28, has grounded into 145 double plays.

You can write Dunn down every year for 40 homers, 100 RBI and 100 runs scored. He plays every day. One never hears about him begging out of the lineup against a tough left hander. You don't just send players like this packing, nor do you pretend to a sliver of a chance that you'll receive equal value in a trade.

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[Slyder]

It's amazing what being patient as a team will do to the offense... Not to mention Corey's not anywhere to be found.

[Doro]

I too love Dunn, keep him around.

[redsrbetter]

You hope he is just starting on a major tear right now. You completely expect the slumps to come and go. Yet you can guarantee he will be consistant every single year. On top of that, his defense has come a very long way. He may be slow and lack any range, but he has shown a heck of a lot of hustle of late.

He was in the hole last night with Junior at the plate and he had a look of enthusiasm all over his face. He wanted his buddy to get something done. He has been seen sprinting to 1B on a groundout this year as well. This may be an altogether different Adam Dunn. You hope a long term contract mixed with young talent like Bruce and Votto can or has turned Dunn into a more passionate player.

I wouldn't mind keeping him around. At the same time, I would expect to be dissapointed in him at times as well. Just like I am dissapointed in any other player. I agree with the thought though. If we lose Dunn and his production, how do we replace it? It is better to go into the 2009 season with two guys guaranteed an outfield spot and be in the market for a CF.

[NFLman2033]

I would really hate to see Dunn play for the Astros.. more than any other team.. IMO if you have no wish to resign him.. then trade him so at least we can hopefully keep him out of our division.. but really i hope we don't trade him.

its funny i was looking at player comparisons on baseball reference.. and guys like Deer came up.. then I looked at comparrisons by Age.. and it was a much better class of players.. if he continues his improvements.. he could join some of the elite clubs..

[CincyRedsFan30]

It's amazing what being patient as a team will do to the offense... Not to mention Corey's not anywhere to be found.

Tonight they scored the same number of runs they did in plenty of Corey's games. And against Dumatrait no less, who Krivsky gave up on to net us nothing but a still shaky rotation and bullpen. Impressive work. And I'm not even saying Dumatrait's good either. But he was better than Harang in this one.