Marty Brennaman

On this date in 2000, Reds announcer Marty Brennaman is inducted into the Hall of Fame.

"I'm tired of hearing people say he'll give you forty homers and drive in a hundred runs every year. First of all, he didn't drive in 100 runs last year. The most overrated stat in baseball is the damn home run. Give me a guy that'll run to his position and run off the field. More often than not, he walks to his position and walks off the field. Give me a guy that shows some life out there." - on Adam Dunn

Adam Dunn #17!

You just know he tanked it last year to be a shoo-in for the Comeback Player of the Year Award!

General managers should keep incentive bonuses for this award out of player contracts to discourage this.

Anybody know Adam Dunn's mailing address?

A.J. Burnett* and Adam Dunn should go to a water park together

Just block everything else out!

*Does that artist still draw? Was he just sick that day?

White Sox RBI totals

Juan Pierre - 40
Adam Dunn - 40

Hey don't write off the little guys!

Adam Dunn

An opposite filed single?!

His season can't get any weirder!

If he gets to third, I expect a straight steal of home!

OMFG!

Brettgardnersslugging%(.394)ishigherthanjaysonwerths(.379)

Andadamdunns(.302)

Butweknewthatlastone

Adam Dunn went 0-4 yesterday with 3 strikeouts

.163 for the season.

The only players in major league history who have been worse with this many at-bats are players from the "deadball" era and there are only seven of them.

Yesterday, Dunn was lifted at first-base in the eighth for a defensive replacement, Brent Lillibridge................who hit a home run when he came up.

This whole thing has reached the supernatural realm now.

Dunn offended some "deity" somewhere sometime before the season.

Gonna hit into a triple play tomorrow with nobody on base.

You watch.

Ozzie knows how to handle this!

"Maybe when he goes home, he starts crying, but when he's around us, he's very good." - Ozzie Guillen on Adam Dunn's season-long slump.

Translation: "At least he doesn't cry here."

Dunn no doubt appreciates the "support"!

Adam Dunn is batting .029 against lefties

Pretty soon conventional numbers will be unable to measure.

Gonna have to use binary numbers.

Did you know that Edwin Jackson....

....has an honorary degree in State (and now Province) income tax law?

- California
- Florida
- Michigan
- Arizona
- Illinois
- Ontario

He did not try and block the trade because now he gets a DH in his lineup!

Adam Dunn hit a home run?!

Did Verlander throw underhand?

Did they sneak the tee out?

If I am the Tigers, I would protest that garbage!

Adam Dunn

Adam Dunn is 2 for 66 against lefties this year with 2 rbis?

Someone need to remind Ozzie that you CAN bat the pitcher!

Read him the rule book.

The DH is not mandatory, you know!

So Adam Dunn is 0-33 against lefties

Is the White Sox batting practice pitcher right-handed or left-handed?

Well there you go!

Oliver Perez needs work!

So does Dontrelle Willis.

So what if they're wild! Dunn has to learn how to hang in there!

Notice I am not bragging about solving this whole thing.

She does not have a mustache!

Be nice now Larry!

And the Astros GM is signed through the end of the 2012 season

Adam Dunn - 11 walks
Houston Astros - 6 walks
Houston Astros - 0 up/8 down

Just sayin'

The strikeout as an offensive weapon

Tim Brown at Yahoo Sports has a recent article on Arizona Diamondbacks free-swinging third baseman Mark Reynolds who set the major league record for strikeouts in a season last year with 204 and is on pace to strike out 220 times this year.

The article contains this gem of a quote from Reynolds: "I don't see how it's such a bad thing. Whoever made that up*, that it's such a bad thing to strike out, is full of crap."

I guess the strikeout gets a bad rap and really needs a new press agent! And all these years we thought a strikeout was bad!

Though he doesn't come right out and say it, I am guessing that Reynolds is saying that 202 strikeouts is an acceptable trade-off for the 38 home runs that he hit last year. For Reynolds, there is no such thing as shortening the swing with two strikes, going with the pitch, hitting to the opposite field, moving along runners etc. Doing all this would interfere with his ability to hit home runs. He can do that one thing well so his development as a player is essentially over.

Reynolds only hit .239 last year and he is not considered to be a good defensive player so aside from his marginal speed (22 stolen bases this year so far), his power is all that he really brings to the table. Probably a step above Rob Deer and Pete Incaviglia but not much (though I do see that Reynolds is bringing his average up this year). He also does not walk a lot like Adam Dunn who is another high strikeout guy but walks a ton which mitigates the strikeouts quite a bit. With Reynolds, do you carry a guy who strikes out 40% of the time so to get his 38 home runs? That is a nice figure but not an enormous amount of home runs.

I think Ted Williams is the pretty much the gold standard for hitting. Would Williams who struck out an average of 38 times a year approve of this new theory which elevates strikeouts to the level of "not a bad thing"? I think we know the answer to that.**

*Nobody really needed to "make it up" as it is kind of an obvious truth.

**Yes, I know that we would have to unfreeze Ted and have him reassembled to get the definitive answer but work with me here, ok?

Reflective thoughts from Adam Dunn

Per AP, a quote from Adam Dunn who hit a 0-2 pitch for a bases-loaded single in the 11th inning to give the Nationals a 2-1 win over the Blue Jays last night:

"I was trying to get something I could hit in the air. The first two pitches, Frasor just kind of blew by me and I don't really have a two strike swing."

An unusually honest comment but let's test the accuracy of this, shall we?

Adam Dunn - strikeouts:

2006 - 194
2007 - 165
2008 - 164

Ok, that was a short and quick exercise.

No two strike swing in that repertoire.

He speaks the truth.