Looking At What Dunn Has Done

Adam Dunn of the Reds is not too complicated of a player to figure out: he walks a lot, strikes out a lot, and hits home runs. In his eighth big league season Dunn has a career walk rate of 17%, a career strikeout rate of 32.7%, and hits a home run about once every 14 at bats. In fact, from 2004 until yesterday, Dunn’s 189 home runs ranks first in the National League and third overall to Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz. His 504 walks ranks first regardless of league as do his 816 strikeouts; in fact, second place in punchouts is Jason Bay with 639, about 180 behind. For anyone confused, Ryan Howard ranks third in this category primarily because he wasn’t a full-time regular in 2004-05.

This year has been essentially the same for Dunn as he finds himself atop the leaderboard in walks and in the top five in both strikeouts and home runs. Still, one major difference is his current .227 batting average. Though I am strongly against using batting average as any type of end-all evaluative barometer, his low percentage of hits in at bats has prevented his already high OBP and SLG from vastly increasing.

His BABIP, which over the course of his career comes out to .291, currently rests at just .248. The only other season in which he posted a sub-.250 BABIP was in 2003, when he still walked, struck out, and homered quite a bit but managed to produce a .215/.354/.465 slash line. While that season resulted in an .819 OPS his OBP and SLG have combined to provide a .902 OPS as of right now.

This got me thinking how many people have posted sub-.230 batting averages while simultaneously producing OPS counts of .900 or higher. Querying for all players satisfying these parameters while amassing 400 or more plate appearances, I found… nobody. I couldn’t find any player that has ever hit .230 or lower with an OPS .900 or higher. Though it isn’t likely Dunn will finish the season with a batting average that low, especially when considering his BABIP has been much higher in the near past, if he does he will end up literally in a league of his own.

Since .900 is a high OPS for years past I modified the search to give me anyone with a sub-.230 batting average and OPS+ of 130 or higher—based on Dunn’s current number—while totaling at least 400 plate appearances. This produced three results, yet all belonged to the same player: Gene Tenace. In 1974, Tenace had a .211 BA/130 OPS+; in 1978, a .224 BA/134 OPS+; and in 1980, a .222 BA/137 OPS+.

Again modifying the search to include those with sub-.230 BAs and an OBP of at least .380, four results and three names surfaced; Tenace in both 1978 and 1980, Wes Westrum’s 1951 season of .219 BA/.400 OBP, and Ray Cullenbine’s 1947 season of .224 BA/.401 OBP.

Just Tenace’s 1978 season and Cullenbine’s 1947 season achieved this “feat” with at least 500 PAs, and only Cullenbine did so with 600+ PAs. Essentially, assuming Dunn doesn’t get hurt, it is very unlikely this BA/OBP or BA/OPS+ combo will continue. Based on his past BABIP results compared to this year it is more likely the BA will increase, in turn meaning his OBP and SLG will look even gaudier. I’m not sure if teams are in serious, serious discussions regarding his services or not, but they should be… even if he isn’t really passionate about the game.