August 8th 2012
DUNN-O-METER
.206
AND FALLING


Dunn is approaching .199 fast. He may not get 100 hits.

That's kind of interesting. 38.75% of his hits this year are home runs. I wonder what the record is for that.

Edit: well here it is. I set an arbitrary minimum of 300 PA's.

Someone posted he got to 30 HR before 30 singles. That's crazy.

And here's the career list, minimum 1500 PA's.

At least half of these guys were juicers.

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Obviously not Dunn, Kittle, or Thome.

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I just dont ever remember a three hitter in a line up for a year ever having a batting average around .200. Whether you agree that its important to have a good avg or not is not the issue. I tried without looking it up and I cant think of anyone. Maybe a Canseco year? Did Cecil Fielder ever bat third? I know Carlos Pena hit under .200 a couple of years ago for TB and again this year but I dont know where he bats in the line up though I doubt in the three spot. Not to mention Dunn's strikeouts which will no doubt be an all time record. Dunn may be having the most unusual season by a hitter in history.

Think about it. Traditionally the three is your best offensive player or run producer. The White Sox "best offensive player" may hit under .200 and destroy the all time strike out in a season record. This is fucked up.

Does he always bat third? That's kinda nutty. 4-5 is usually where your high power, lower average guy would go. Why isn't Konerko batting third?

Thanks spanky...

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team Mully & Hanley
team Meatpants

By the way, the Shawon-O-Meter first appeared in 1989. And the "and rising" part turned out to be true...it just took him until 1995 to have a season with a BA above .278!

He's even led off, or 2 quite a bit. Maddon doesn't use traditional philosophies of lineup construction.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

And for the 2012 White Sox, that's Adam Dunn: 65 runs scored, 75 RBI.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Well, what is a run producer then? All that counts is scoring a run or driving one in.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

So trickybeck, you would rather your #3 guy hit .300, but have 8 Hrs, 25 RBI, and 25 runs scored at this point?

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I know that if I've got a guy on second and I need to drive him in, I'll take Tony Perez. You're welcome to Darrell Porter.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I'd rather have Paul Konerko with his current numbers than Adam Dunn with his current numbers. That's the only argument I've been making in this thread. Konerko has better BA, better OBP, and better Slugging. He has enough HR's to justify batting #3, compared to other Sox hitters anyway. I don't think I'm making a strange argument. You people are so weird.

If there's a runner on second, 2012 Konerko is going to have a much better chance to drive him in than 2012 Dunn.

Konerko has an extra-base hit in 9.28% of his AB's. He has a single in 22.28% of his AB's. Let's say 75% of the time a single drives in a run from second? That's just a guess. So Konerko drives that run in 25.99% of the time.
Dunn would drive in that runner 18.36% of the time.

Unless you're arguing that Konerko isn't clutch? I don't really know, since I don't watch the games. But I've never heard anyone make that argument.



Oh, and I'd take Tony Perez, too. He's a straight-up better hitter than Porter, both by conventional stats and by modern stats. So I'm not sure what you're getting at.

The Sox actually have a pretty interesting lineup right now. They have 3 guys with identical OPS of .892 - Konerko, Rios, Pierzynski. And 4 guys with 16-21 HRs. Konerko has the best OBP, which would make you want to bat him higher in the lineup, but he's so slow. You probably don't want you catcher hitting too high in the order I guess, especially an aging one. So I guess I'd go De Aza, Rios, Konerko, Dunn, Pierzynski as 1-5. But 2-5 there are so close in production that it wouldn't matter too much in the end.

Sounds alot like Rizz's stat line right now!!!

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

There isn't a choice between Dunn and Konerko. The Sox have them both. As I know you are a guy who is quite familiar with SABRmetrics, I'm certain you're well aware that the order of the hitters is insignificant. If your argument is that Konerko is a superior hitter to Dunn, and thus, an attempt should be made to get him more at-bats, I can agree.

The fact is though, that Dunn has been perfectly capable batting in the three-hole and there is no disputing the fact that he has been the Sox' best run producer to this point, as his runs scored and runs batted in illustrate. I realize the desire to look at a guy's averages and say, "this guy would have done this had he batted here." The idea that had Dave Magadan only been allowed Joe Carter's chances, he'd have 1500 RBI rather than the 500 he actually got is pure speculation and in no way based on reality.

Finally, I'm pretty sure Bill James considers Porter to be a superior player to Perez based on his win share system. This is clearly due, at least in part, to Porter's higher walk rate. My belief is that for years batter's walks were undervalued and current fashion is overvaluing them. Ultimately, a player's value is evidenced by his production (runs scored and RBI). Anything else is theoretical.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Also, I should mention that the reason the Sox set the lineup the way they do is because they want to mix up the hitters from both sides of the plate. They don't want a team to be able to get two outs with a loogy facing Dunn and Pierzynski or bring in their toughest righty set-up guy to face Konerko and Rios.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

We are the weird ones, but you would rather Konerko than Alex Rios if you were going to change the #3 hitter.


The #3 hitter is supposed to drive in runs, or get on base for the guy behind him to drive in runs. Adam Dunn has done that all season. You can argue until the cows come home, but until you realize that Dunn is doing what a #3 hitter should be doing, your argument has been and will continue to be flawed.

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And Konerko has a better OBP and a better SLG than Dunn. Thanks for making my argument for me. You are truly laughable. I'm not going to bother trying to have any more serious discussions here. Goodbye.

trickybeckstein

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I don't think they're refuting that Dunn isn't doing his job. I think the argument is Konerko would be better as the 3 hitter. Given his higher OBP and contact rate I think a reasonable assumption is he'd eclipse Dunn's RBI and runs.

But with stat heads supposedly refuting the idea of line up orders mattering maybe this discussion is useless.

Hey Mr pretentious know it all, who has more RBI's (by more than 20 )? Who has more runs scored? Who has more HRs?

I think what is truly laughable is wanting to take a guy who has 21 FEWER RBI's and put him in the 3 spot. How very Elmhurstian of you.

Konerko would NOT be the best choice for #3 hitter. If its not going to be Dunn, its Rios. I love Konerko, he's one of my favorite players ever. But since he missed a couple of games back in May with that wrist issue, he has not been all that great. Rios, on the other hand, has been on a tear since about late April. Even AJ would be better option than Konerko right now.

Fact is Dunn and Rios are the biggest run producers on this team. Having anybody else hitting 3 is flat out stupid.

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I'm not sure what a "stat head" is, but if the idea is to get the best hitter the most at-bats, we should be talking about Konerko leading off. It's kind of silly to pick and choose how you use the stats. The entire philosophy behind moving Konerko up is strictly based on getting him more at-bats. That being the case, why no outrage that he's not leading off? I guess a lot of people like modern statistics-based thinking but they're only willing to take it so far.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don