Adam Dunn: Hall of Famer? (Also: Big Papi?)

OK, maybe he wasn't great with the glove but I don't hold his OBP against him. In the era he played in, no one paid attention to that stat. Plus, at the time he retired he was in the top 20 in career home runs.

 

We know you don't care about defense. You wouldn't worship Jeter if you did.

 

I just checked my 1981 Topps baseball card set.

"BB" is a category on the back of the cards.

I suppose you raise an interesting point, though. How much should our player evaluations take into account what was valued during that era, even if we later come to understand that it was flawed thinking? Eddie Collins had 33 sacrifice bunts in a year in which he hit .372, and 39 sacrifices in a year in which he hit .360. Ichiro has never had more than four. Tony Gwynn topped out at 11 and Wade Boggs at eight. But I bet Collins would have been criticized in his time if he didn't give himself up as frequently as he did. He's the all-time leader in sacrifices, and I'm willing to bet that they hurt his team more than they helped him. Was that his fault, though? That's how the game was played then.

 

Kingman was also influential. Jim Thome, to name one player, has talked about how watching Kingman blast home runs inspired him to play baseball. So he also has that going for him.

 

And I'm not a fan, but Big Papi will get in. He was probably the best hitter in the AL from 2003-07.

 

In that case, Collins was executing a game plan. Kingman just had no discipline. A .302 on-base percentage is terrible. It was terrible then, too.

 

I think so, too, but think of, even now, how irritated Moddy gets when people suggest that Mike Morse should develop more discipline.

I suspect that at least some people in baseball at the time - hell, Dusty Baker still thinks this - thought that Kingman's low OBP was a good thing because it indicated that he was "aggressive."

 

But no one cared back then if a hitter didn't have a good OBP. Kingman was one of the highest paid players in the game at his peak. Sure, Mike Schmidt was a better all-around player but I bet their paychecks weren't that different.

 

I don't think that he was ever among the highest paid players. Two minutes on Google led me to an article about his huge $3.5 million contract that even eclipsed what the Mets paid Craig Swan ($3.15). His highest recorded salary was just over $1 million in a year that Eddie Murray was highest paid at $2.6 million.

He certainly was never considered one of the best players.

 

So based on that standard should we just induct Barry Zito and A.J. Burnett as well?

 

I think this concept hhas jumped the shark when Dave Kingman, let alone Adam Dunn, is being considered, and we're slagging on a. 372 hitter for bunting