From: Gregg on
On Apr 29, 11:06 pm, John Kasupski <w2...(a)spamfilter.verizon.net>
wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:36:40 -0700 (PDT), tom dunne <dunn...(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

Tell us how you really feel John. ;-) FWIW - great post.
From: David Short on
On 4/29/2010 11:08 PM, John Kasupski wrote:
> 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!

It's easy to keep us straight. Tom's the pretty one.

dfs
From: RJA on
On Apr 29, 10:38 pm, tom dunne <dunn...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 29, 9:59 pm, eddyg...(a)msn.com (john smith) wrote:
>
> > guess Adam Dunn and Reggie Jackson?
>
> You got it in one, John!  Their career averages are very similar, and
> Reggie Jackson is actually the all-time strikeout leader in MLB
> history.  He also made the playoffs 11 times, with three different
> franchises.  Jackson shares the all-time strikeout top ten with Willie
> Stargell, Mike Schmidt and Tony Perez, each one a Hall of Famer and
> champion.  Strikeouts are no fun to watch, but they really just don't
> mean anything about how good or bad a player is.

Yeah, but Reggie knows how to win and Dunn doesn't. Just like Cairo
and Cabrera. ;)