{"id":5395,"date":"2011-11-04T10:54:46","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T15:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=5395"},"modified":"2011-11-04T12:20:54","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T17:20:54","slug":"2011-sombreros-in-review-adam-dunn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/5395","title":{"rendered":"2011 Sombreros in Review: Adam Dunn"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What\u2019s there to say about Adam Dunn<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s 2011 season that hasn\u2019t already been said?\u00a0 With an fWAR of -2.9 over 496 plate appearances, Dunn had one of the worst seasons in baseball history and recorded career lows in nearly every offensive category.\u00a0 He finished the season with a triple slash line of .159\/.292\/.277, wRC+ of 59, .118 ISO, 27 extra-base hits, and a measly 42 RBI.<\/p>\n

Along the way, the big man amassed three golden sombreros, putting him in a seven-way tie for first place in Major League Baseball.\u00a0 He picked up his first on May 21 against the Dodgers and then followed it up with his second on May 26 against the Blue Jays.\u00a0 The final sombrero came exactly a month later at the hands of the Washington Nationals.<\/p>\n

Absolutely nothing went Dunn\u2019s way in 2011; he hit like crap and was an utter disappointment in his first season with the White Sox.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t a single moment where it seemed as though Dunn might turn the corner.\u00a0 He never hit that dramatic walk-off bomb in front of a sold out home crowd or had a multi-home run game to rally the troops in his favor.<\/p>\n

So what can be attributed to Dunn\u2019s abysmal season? Well, his 35.7% strikeout rate is a good but obvious starting point.\u00a0 In 415 at-bats this season, Dunn set a franchise record by fanning 177 times.\u00a0 And although his penchant for striking out is as much of a defining trait as his longball potential, nothing pointed towards a complete offensive collapse.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Dunn absolutely torched fastballs, as evidenced by a 32.1 wFB.\u00a0 This past season, however, he posted a wFB of -8.5 (!), which is easily the worst of his storied career.\u00a0 His inability to square up fastballs in turn damaged his approach at the plate, causing him to struggle mightily against offspeed pitches: -7.2 wSL (0.7 in 2010), -3.6 wCT (-2.5 in 2010), and -5.8 wCH (-3.9 in 2010) \u2013 all career lows.<\/p>\n

Dunn also recorded a 57.8% O-Contact% (contact percentage on pitches thrown outside the strikezone), which, when supplemented by his 9.6% HR\/FB rate, explains why he was seldom feared by opposing pitchers; they could comfortably attack him within the strikezone without the fear of 450-foot repercussions.<\/p>\n

Here is Dunn\u2019s \u2018Swing Pitch Type\u2019 chart from this past season:<\/p>\n

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While his selectiveness was decent\u2014he did manage to coax 75 walks (15.1%)\u2014Dunn simply was unable to consistently drive pitches within the strikezone, something that he\u2019d never really struggled with.\u00a0 Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Dunn failed to provoke an intentional walk all season for the first time in his 11-year career.<\/p>\n

Yet, what Dunn\u2019s season indicates, more than anything else, is a total lack of comfort and confidence at the dish \u2013 a realm of the game that cannot be quantified. Sure we can delve through endless statistics in search of some type of rationalization, but there is no true, metric-based explanation for why a player who averaged nearly 40 home runs and 100 RBI per season would suddenly hit his way out of a starting line up.<\/p>\n

As any hitter will tell you, there\u2019s nothing more detrimental to one\u2019s performance than a waning level of confidence at the plate.\u00a0 Once that confidence begins to waver, a hitter suddenly becomes susceptible to a slew of problems \u2013 some old, some new.\u00a0 After scuffling through the first month of the season, Dunn never quite turned the corner as everyone expected he would, including himself.\u00a0 Instead, his season spiraled out of control, as he absorbed the majority of the blame for the White Sox struggles, which in turn compounded his own personal issues.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s there to say about Adam Dunn\u2019s 2011 season that hasn\u2019t already been said?\u00a0 With an fWAR of -2.9 over 496 plate appearances, Dunn had one of the worst seasons in baseball history and recorded career lows in nearly every offensive category.\u00a0 He finished the season with a triple slash line of .159\/.292\/.277, wRC+ of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1300,6,16,11,13,14],"tags":[155,2884,2287,264,887,559,454,151],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5395"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5405,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395\/revisions\/5405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}