Adam Dunn's Red Flag?

If Adam Dunn never plays another home game in Washington, his career at Nationals Park ended on a particularly ignominious note: 0-4, 4Ks. The golden sombrero. Of course, he didn't get cheated on any of those swings, so it's not hard to believe than Adam was pressing to give the home fans a memorable show. Dunn's 2010 has been marked by his traditional display of power - 38 homers and counting - but marred by a career low walk percentage and a career high percentage of strikeouts.

Dunn is famous for being very nearly the platonic ideal of a 3 True Outcomes hitter. When he comes up to bat you can lay good money on a home run, a walk, or a strikeout. He has seven consecutive seasons of at least 38 HRs, and averages 111 BBs and 183 Ks per season for his career. He's led the league in strikeouts three times and walks once. Yet in 2010 he has just 76 walks and is one whiff away from a career high of 196 strikeouts.

Over his career Adam has a K/BB ratio of 1.65. This season he's averaging 2.57 strikeouts per walk. His previous season high was 1.95 K/BB through 66 games in his 2001 rookie season. That was also his career low for walk percentage, when 13.3% of all his plate appearances ended in a base-on-balls. In 2010 he's walking just 11.9% of the time. Dunn is also striking out in more than 30% of his plate appearances, the highest that number has been in his 10 year career. As a result Adam's on-base percentage (.359) is the lowest it's been since 2003 (.354) and 22 points below his career average (.381).

The decline can be traced to a second-half slump. Pre-All Star break Dunn was hitting 288/372/588. He's a career 254/385/547 first-half hitter, so apart from swapping some OBP for increased power and batting average, the numbers are pretty typical. In the second half everything declined. Adam typically wears down over the course of the season, but this year it was particularly noticeable. Dunn's batting average cratered to .227, his on-base percentage dropped thirty points to .342 and he lost power to the tune of a .480 slugging percentage (vs. 247/376/493 in the second half for his career.)

At this point it's important to pause and note that there is nothing wrong with a .359 on-base percentage. Dunn's OBP is the 23rd best in the National League, nothing to sneeze at for a guy who also owns the league's 5th best slugging percentage. However, as the Nationals contemplate re-signing Adam for 3 or 4 more years they should be aware of that his 2010 numbers are moving in the wrong direction. It's impossible to draw definite conclusions from a half season's worth of stats, but that doesn't make them any less concerning.

There are mitigating factors. Josh Willingham, who hit behind Dunn in the first half and was arguably the Nats second best hitter in April and May got hurt and struggled in July and August before going on the DL. Maybe his absence made pitchers less reluctant to pitch to Dunn in the second half. Maybe Adam felt more pressure to swing and try to put the ball in play with a rotating cast of Bernadina, Rodriguez and Morse hitting behind him. Or maybe we're seeing the very early signs of Dunn's decline. Hitters with "old player skills" (i.e. power and batting eye) have a nasty track record of declining hard and fast once they hit the wall.

Adam Dunn will probably never be more than a serviceable but solidly below-average defense first baseman. His value is linked inextricably to his bat. He is without question one of the premier sluggers in baseball. But this year his declining walks and increasing strikeouts have driven him closer to being an "all or nothing" hitter. That could be a one-half season blip, or it could be a sign of things to come. I wish Mike Rizzo all the best of luck in trying to figure out which explanation is closer to the truth.

(If you want to check my math, Adam Dunn's stats are drawn from Baseball Reference - a statistical gold mine.)

What Have the Phillies Dunn?

In case you somehow missed the news, Philadelphia today inked their star first baseman to a 20-year, 50 bajillion dollar contract extension. (Okay, it was 5 years, $125M, as though that makes it better.) It's rare to see a deal immediately and universally deplored, but that appears to be happening here. I'm sure someone, somewhere is lauding this as a great deal for the Phils, but I sure haven't seen it yet.

Now, as a Nats fan I'm perfectly content to see the Phillies misallocate resources on an epic scale. Perhaps Philly GM Reuben Amaro, Jr. thinks he's undergone some sort of Freaky Friday body exchange with Brian Cashman, or maybe he figures he'll be out of the picture long before Ryan Howard goes full-Albert Belle on this contract. That's fine. Philadelphia certainly has the money now, and if this is how their front office chooses to spend it, bully. But here's the problem with teams throwing that kind of money around; the repercussions impact everyone.

Craig Calcaterra has a pretty good run-down of the immediate winners and losers in Howard's new deal. Among the winners are Ryan himself, and the free agent first base class of 2011, including Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder and Adrian Gonzalez. Not mentioned by Calcaterra but slated to be a free agent first baseman this offseason? Our own Adam Dunn.

Howard's new contract extension complicates things for the Nats on a couple of fronts. One, it raises the market rate for defensively-challenged slugging first basemen on the wrong side of 30. This will make it more expensive to retain Adam, if the team is inclined to go that route. I'm not suggesting that Dunn will get, or even ask for, $25M/year, but it's not unreasonable to think that the price range for an extension may have gone up from $12-15M annually to $15-18M.

Second, and probably more important, if the Nats let Dunn walk, the cost of replacing him has also gone up. Even leaving aside Pujols, Fielder and Gonzalez, all of whom will likely command salaries equivalent to or greater than Howard's deal, a rising tide lifts all boats. Second-tier first basemen like Carlos Pena will have a new benchmark, and if Adam Dunn goes, the Nats are going to have a big void to fill.

Unless Chris Marrero shows something in AA Harrisburg pretty soon, the farm system's cupboard at 1B is more than bare. It's not just Dunn's offensive numbers that will have to be replaced (no easy task), it's the man himself. For better or worse he is the Nats most experienced first baseman. The idea of inserting Josh Whitesell or Chris Duncan as a stopgap can hardly be encouraging for a Nats franchise angling for a return to respectability over the next few seasons.

So feel free to chuckle at the Phillies today, but reserve a few tears to weep at what their profligacy may well mean for the future of your team.

Doing Arbitration Right

Maybe the Nats are a little arb happy. Maybe the Lerners are cheap. Maybe Stan Kasten's stubborn, or maybe Mike Rizzo has an ego the size of Livan Hernandez. I don't know... and neither do you. Here's what I know: just because you decide to take a player to arbitration doesn't mean you have to trash him. From Nationals Journal:

According to Bruney, Washington argued for the lesser of those salaries by emphasizing the relief pitcher's recent injury history.

It's easy to see how disagreements about a pitcher's talent and results can get heated and leave hard feelings. It's harder to see how a player can get very upset about the observation that he just hasn't been 100% for the last few years.

Rizzo: You've been banged up.
Bruney: Have not.
Rizzo: Have too.
Bruney: It's just a flesh wound.

In any case, Bruney said he trusted the market to tell him what he's worth, and the market has spoken.

How NOT to Get By on $394,000 a Year

Times are tough all over, I get that. But WTF, man?

Some quick math: $394,000 minus

• 5% for the agent ($19,700) = $374,300
• 30% for the tax man ($118,200) = $256,100
• Child support @ $6,527/mo ($78,324) = $177,776

So that's roughly $175K after taxes, paying off your agent and child support. No doubt legal fees are eating up a chunk of that, and there's still rent and living expenses to consider, but if Elijah's having trouble making ends meet on the MLB minimum, he needs to reexamine his commitments.

Something just doesn't add up. Or to put it another way...