Odds And Ends: Braves, Orioles, Redding, Dunn, Ryan

Gonzalez that is, not Gonzales.

Tim could you give us your deadline grades?

Adam Dunn?

Let's see.

He is a ONE TOOL player who has been in the League seven years and has yet to be on a winning team.

Adam Dunn.

A guy with tremendous power who plays in a park that Bill James says inflates Left Handed hitters power numbers by 27% yet, because he REFUSES to hit the ball to the opposite field, struggles to hit 40 Home Runs a year and drive in 100 RBI's.

Adam Dunn.

A career .248 hitter (.221 with RISP and who Strikes Out in almost 35% of his career At Bats) who has won NO Home Run titles, NO RBI titles, NO Silver Slugger Awards, been on only one All Star team and whose highest finish in MVP voting has been 26th.

A man who John DeWan, of the Fielding Bible, says is one of the worst Defensive Left Fielders in the NL and who has been for the last three years. A guy who already has six Errors this year and who Johnny Cueto was visably upset with after he didn't catch a ball off the bat of Fukudome a couple of weeks ago in the Cubs series.

Adam Dunn, a rental player nobody wanted because a) he had no value or B) Bob Ca$htellini would rather spend $13 million on his man crush than get a year supply of Viagra.

So other rental players like Sabathia, Texiera, Griffey and Manny had value and were traded but Dunn wasn't.

J. P. Ricciardi may be considered an idiot BUT he IS a GM of a Major League team and what he says DOES carry a lot of weight. Much more so than sportswriters, fans and bloggers. So what he said about Dunn poisoned the water. I mean, if some other team traded for Dunn and then he tanked (like he usually does in the second half) then fans of that team could point and say, "see, Ricciardi was RIGHT".

Finally, if Dunn had any value then WHY didn't the Red Sox or Mets go after him?

Oh, that is right, Bill James is employed by the Red Sox and he said a few years ago that "old skill" players Offensive production often times starts to decline sooner than players with "young skills" and when it does, it drops more precipitously. Fancy that James used Adam Dunn and Richie Sexson as examples and look where Sexson is now.

Also note, that Wayne Krivsky, EX GENERAL MANAGER OF THE CINCINNATI REDS, is now employed by the Mets as a Special Assistant. If Dunn were all that and a bag of chips, with the Mets looking like they might need an Outfielder, don't you think HE would have suggested the Mets fo after Dunn?

Now, Ricciardi might not have had the right to say the things he did about Dunn (even though they were true) because he didn't know Dunn BUT Krivsky sure as He!! knows Dunn and if the Mets didn;t go after him then that should be a pretty good clue.