Nice article on Dunn...

[AdamDunn#44]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...lds/index.html

Adam bombs

Dunn powers National League's best outfield

Here he comes, The Donkey himself, baseball's best chance for a 50-home run slugger in 2005. Adam Dunn enters the visiting clubhouse at Minute Maid Park on a hot Saturday morning in Houston and greets every player he passes, like a small-town politician making his way through a crowd. "Hey Joe," he says to Joe Randa. "Hey D," he says to D'Angelo Jimenez. "Hey Junior," he says to Ken Griffey, Jr. who's mumbling into his cellphone as he sits on an oversized leather couch, where Dunn, the 6-foot-6, 260-pound behemoth, plops himself to catch the end of a Cubs game in which Carlos Zambrano is one-hitting the Brewers.
A familiar looking blonde actress flashes on the TV screen. "Who's that?" Dunn yells. "Wasn't she in Jerry Maguire?"

"Yeah," Junior chimes in. Austin Kearns, sitting nearby, offers "Bonnie Hunt, I think." Says Dunn, "Yeah, the man-hater."

In the Reds' frat-like clubhouse (half the players here can recite most of Old School on the spot), these three -- Dunn, Griffey, and Kearns -- are inseparable; the badinage among them never stops. During Spring Training they dined together almost every night. Their Xbox clashes are season-long epic tournaments ("Madden, NCAA Football, Halo, everything," says Dunn. Adds Kearns: "It's pretty fun just embarrassing Junior when we play."). They stretch together, they lounge around in the clubhouse together. "I think both Adam and I grew up worshipping Junior," says Kearns, 24. "But now he's just one of us. It's a little weird, I guess." Says Dunn, "Junior's the biggest clown [of the three]."

Junior is the biggest clown; Dunn is the biggest bopper. At this moment, in fact, with Barry Bonds out, Dunn is baseball's most fearsome slugger. "His power is virtually unmatched," says Brewers skipper Ned Yost. "Maybe Barry Bonds can hit them as far, but that's about it. If [Dunn] could ever cut down on his strikeouts, he probably would hit 60 homers." Says Astros GM Tim Purpura: "He made a big jump last year. He became a more patient guy at the plate, more selective, and he's become one of the scariest guys a pitcher can face."

If Dunn weren't here he'd probably be in the NFL. As a quarterback at New Caney High in Texas he threw for 4,792 yards and 44 touchdowns. As a senior in 1998 he signed a letter of intent to attend Texas on a football scholarship. But now Dunn is one of baseball's brightest young stars; in 2004 he had a career year -- 46 homers in 568 at-bats and a .569 slugging percentage -- thanks to Reds hitting coach Chris Chambliss, who joined the Reds last winter. "The biggest thing I learned last year [from Chambliss] was to hit to all fields," says Dunn. "But he's let me do my thing, too. I've gotten so much different advice over the years, that I'd get confused on what I was trying to do. Now my approach is a lot simpler, and I'm a lot more relaxed."

Dunn is proof that striking out a lot is OK. No player in history struck out more times in a season than Dunn did in 2004, when he whiffed 195 times in 161 games. But Dunn doesn't care about his robust strikeout totals."If I were hitting .200 with just 10 homers, I'd be worried," he says. "But I'm not."

Dunn's emergence and the good health of Griffey and Kearns give the Reds the most fearsome outfield in the National League. The Reds' fourth outfielder, Wily Mo Pena, is a future star. Pena, 23, puts on a show during every batting practice and can turn on fastballs with tape-measure results. Because of injuries to Griffey and Kearns last year, Pena got regular playing time for the first time in his career. The results: 26 homers in 336 at-bats. Through Monday he's had nine at-bats this season and slugged two homers.

"It's hard to gauge what Junior has left because we've only seen him healthy a couple of times the last few years. But when he's healthy, he's still a very good player," says Yost. "[The Reds' outfield is] pretty potent. There's a lot of capacity for run production with those three, when they're healthy."

[ghettochild]

good article, made me chuckle

[griffeyfan3]

yea thats a nice article....nice find dunn#44

[CincyRedsFan30]

I am still not certain that Pena is a "future star". I'm not buying that at this juncture.

This was a pretty good article though.

[Krazyredsfanguy]

if this keeps up you figure pena will get about 270 ab's? thats 60 homers lol

[redsrbetter]

I think Pena is a future star. But it may take him longer than it should to get there without a trade or injury occuring. So we'll see.

[bipster]

The single most important part of the article, is the fact that Dunn obviously likes Chambliss' teaching approach. If Dunn isn't down on Chambliss, we shouldn't be either.

[AdamDunn#44]

The single most important part of the article, is the fact that Dunn obviously likes Chambliss' teaching approach. If Dunn isn't down on Chambliss, we shouldn't be either.

I will stop being down on Dunn when Dunn starts taking more walks and returns to his 2004 form.