Is it possible, in this day and age, for a player like Adam Dunn to be undervalued? I think so. As Lonnie Wheeler informs us, it’s "not working" with the big guy. Dunn turns 27 in November. He’ll make $10.5MM in 2007 and has a $13MM club option for ’08.
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So what exactly isn’t working with Dunn? He’s hit 126 home runs over the past three seasons. Only David Ortiz and Albert Pujols have more. Dunn also has a .380 OBP over the last three seasons. Better than Carlos Delgado, David Wright, Mark Teixeira, Miguel Tejada, Carlos Beltran, Aramis Ramirez, or Andruw Jones.
The problems, of course, are the strikeouts and low batting averages. Sportswriters just can’t take this. You just can’t convince some people that a guy who hits .240 and whiffs 190 times is a premiere player.
Dunn slipped all the way to .229/.360/.416 after the All-Star break, and that certainly contributed to the Reds’ demise. But I don’t think 250 ABs should erase Dunn’s previous body of work. He’s pretty close to a lock for 40 HRs and a .370 OBP. You better believe that’s worth $10 mil. Baseball Prospectus says Dunn is worth about $53MM for 2007-10.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see some smart team fleece Wayne Krivsky for Dunn. You’ll notice I said smart,which probably rules out the Cubs. That’s a shame – would Bob Howry and Scott Eyre get it done? One could envision the Blue Jays, Red Sox, White Sox, A’s, Rangers, Brewers, or Diamondbacks acquiring Dunn this winter.
