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From: john smith on 29 Apr 2010 22:55
Hey Tom, remember Gorman Thomas? He had some prime years similar to
Jackson and Dunn and almost won a World series in 82...

From: John Kasupski on 29 Apr 2010 23:06
On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:36:40 -0700 (PDT), tom dunne <dunnetg(a)gmail.com> wrote:

>Player A: .249 avg/.383 obp/.518 slg, 40 homers, 97 RBI, career 132 OPS
>+, lead league in strikeouts 3 times.
>Player B: .262 avg/.356 obp/.490 slg, 32 homers, 98 RBI, career 139 OPS
>+, lead league in strikeouts 5 times.
>
>Which one is a Hall of Famer with 4 rings, and which one is the reason
>why his franchises are perennial losers? How can you tell the
>difference? Honest answers only, please - no looking up the names
>until after you submit your guess!

David, I don't need to look those up to figure out that Dunn is Player A (for
one thing I just mentioned his career .249 average upthread) and to guess that
Reggie Jackson is Player B. See what happens when you only look at part of the
picture? Jackson earned the name "Mr. October" - and wound up in the Hall - in
part because he performed even better in postseason play - hitting exclusively
against pitching staffs that were good enough for their teams to make the
playoffs - than he did during regular season play:

Stat -- Regular Season -- Postseason
BA -- .262 -- .278
SLG -- .490 -- .527
OPS -- .846 -- .885

Dunn will never be a Mr. October. He doesn't get that far, he vanishes in
September and drags his team down with him. He's no Reggie Jackson. He's Dave
Kingman (yeah, I know, but...) - who unlike Dunn actually played in the NLDS
once, in 1971 when he was a rookie...hit .111 with 3 Ks in 9 at-bats, his team
lost, and he played another 15 years in the majors without ever sniffing
postseason play again.

Like Dunn, he was a butcher defensively (his career fielding percentage is below
league average at all four positions that he played - 1B, 3B, LF, RF), and like
Dunn, his trade value was minimal (unless you consider getting traded for the
likes of Paul Siebert, Bobby Valentine, Randy Stein, and Steve Henderson to
indicate that he was highly coveted by opposing teams and that the GMs of the
teams he played for were just stupid...which may indeed be the case considering
that they signed him or traded for him in the first place).

Like Dunn, you could forget getting veteran leadership out of the guy - Dunn's
idea of veteran leadership was to join Ken Griffey Jr. in putting two Sharper
Image massage chairs in the clubhouse and then manager Dave Miley had them
removed, hanging Danny Graves' jersey near his locker as an homage to his
departed friend and whining to the press, "So now we're going to start winning,
it was the chair's fault." Kingman's idea of veteran leadership was to get fined
$3500 for sending a rat to a female reporter to protest female reporters being
in the clubhouse.

They'd have probably made great teammates on the modern Washington Nationals,
the Cubs of the late 70's, or the Oakland Athletics of '84-'86 - all of which
share a considerable distance between themselves and postseason play.

What exactly do you think Ricciardi was talking about up in Toronto in '08 when
he ripped Dunn on the radio? Do you really think it's a coincidence that the
only team willing to sign him to a free agent contract was the absolute worst
team in baseball, the same team who happily welcomed Wily Taveras into the fold
this year after his monumental flop in Cinci last year (and this time
Leatherpants had nothing to do with it) and traded promising outfield prospect
Chris Carter to the BoSox the for Wily Mo after he flopped in both Cinci AND
Boston? Do you really think Walt Jocketty, who assembled teams in St. Louis that
won seven division titles, a wild card, two NL pennants and a WS, suddenly
turned stupid when he came to Cinci, or do you think maybe he knows what he's
doing and had a good reason for getting rid of Dunn as soon as he got a
chance...including some things that possibly don't show up in a box score?

The fact that the Reds haven't replaced his numbers yet is irrelevant. The
inability to afford a prosthesis to replace a gangrenous leg that is amputated
in order to save the life of the patient is not a logical reason for the patient
to keep the leg and die of necrosis.

Now please, let's put this argument back to bed where it belongs and get on with
the business of enjoying the current season instead of arguing about something
that's over and done with and has been for three years now.

JK

From: tom dunne on 29 Apr 2010 23:06
On Apr 29, 10:55 pm, eddyg...(a)msn.com (john smith) wrote:
> Hey Tom, remember Gorman Thomas? He had some prime years similar to
> Jackson and Dunn and almost won a World series in 82...

Yep, he's pretty comparable too, except that Dunn walks a lot more.
Thomas could play CF, though, so he was probably more valuable than
Dunn in his prime years.
From: John Kasupski on 29 Apr 2010 23:08
On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 03:06:43 +0000, John Kasupski <w2pio(a)spamfilter.verizon.net>
wrote:

>David, I don't need to look those up to figure out...

And I did that twice, too. Since I was replying to Tom and not to David, that's
a little embarassing. Sorry, my bad!

JK

From: John Kasupski on 29 Apr 2010 23:13
On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:06:47 -0700 (PDT), tom dunne <dunnetg(a)gmail.com> wrote:

>On Apr 29, 10:55�pm, eddyg...(a)msn.com (john smith) wrote:
>> Hey Tom, remember Gorman Thomas? He had some prime years similar to
>> Jackson and Dunn and almost won a World series in 82...
>
>Yep, he's pretty comparable too, except that Dunn walks a lot more.
>Thomas could play CF, though, so he was probably more valuable than
>Dunn in his prime years.

I read in a magazine years ago that a woman showed up at a Brewers' game with a
baseball that had been signed by Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron, and Joe
DiMaggio, and asked Gorman Thomas to sign it. He did, and handed it back to her
and told her, "There's no telling what that ball was worth before I signed it."

JK

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