Sunday, January 29, 2006

Hall of Fame a Dunn Deal

Sorry. Always wanted to write a corny name as a pun headline. I was reading this article about how Adam Dunn played last season with a broken hand. I've always liked Adam Dunn. He's a little guy like myself and he possesses such a unique set of baseball skills, he's fun to follow. Only 56 players in history have put together a 100 walk-100 strikeout season. Only two have done it twice before the age of 25 (Troy Glaus is the other. For his size, he runs well. But mostly, when he does hit a ball, he just pounds it.

I decided to break out an old thing of Bill James'; The Favorite Toy. It's a rough guide to determining the likelihood that a player will reach a certain milestone number in his career based on his age and his progress to date. I decided to run Dunn through the paces. According to my figuring, Dunn has an 11% chance of passing Hank Aaron as the all-time leader in home runs, a three percent chance of passing Rickey Henderson as the all-time leader in walks, and a 33% chance of passing Reggie Jackson as Strikeout King.

Given the career totals of everyone else, the number that Dunn has a 50% chance of reaching in each category would put him 93rd all-time in runs, 15th in home runs, 21st in walks, 2nd in strikeouts, 91st in OBP, 55th in slugging and 41st in OPS.

The big question with Dunn is whether he can raise his batting average. If he can do that, and stay healthy, I don't think there's much question that he will be in the Hall of Fame.

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