Adam Dunn

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Adam Dunn

2020 Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Adam Dunn

Five facts about Adam Dunn:

Adam Dunn played first base for the Washington Nationals in the first major-league game I ever took my son, who was then 8 years old. When Adam Dunn came up in the first inning, I told Brandon, "This is Adam Dunn. All he does is strike out, walk, and hit home runs." Dunn proceeded to walk. In the third inning, in Dunn's second plate appearance, he hit a home run. In Dunn's last two plate appearances of the game, in the 5th and 8th innings, Dunn struck out.

Adam Dunn made two All-Star teams, in 2002 and 2015.

Adam Dunn struck out 100 or more times every season of his career except for his 66-game rookie season. He led the league in strikeouts four times. His 2,379 career strikeouts are the third-most in major-league history.

Adam Dunn drew 100 or more walks eight times in his career. He led his league in walks twice. Dunn's 1,317 career walks are the 43rd-most in major-league history.

Adam Dunn hit a career-high 46 home runs in 2004. He then hit exactly 40 home runs in each of the next four seasons. He broke his string of 40-homer seasons in 2009 when he hit 38 home runs (including the one in Wrigley mentioned above). He followed that up with another 38-homer season in 2010. Dunn's 462 career home runs are the 37th-most in major-league history.

The first two tables below present Adam Dunn's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
2001	CIN	21	66	9.8	7.8	2.3	1.4
2002	CIN	22	158	19.2	17.0	2.6	0.8
2003	CIN	23	116	13.6	12.4	1.7	0.5
2004	CIN	24	161	21.9	17.4	5.2	3.3
2005	CIN	25	160	21.7	16.7	5.7	3.9
2006	CIN	26	160	20.2	18.5	2.3	0.4
2007	CIN	27	152	19.2	17.6	2.3	0.5
+– 2008		28	158	20.9	17.9	3.8	1.9
	ARI		44	5.8	4.9	1.0	0.5
	CIN		114	15.2	13.0	2.8	1.5
2009	WAS	29	159	19.3	17.9	1.8	-0.0
2010	WAS	30	158	17.9	15.8	2.1	0.4
2011	CHA	31	122	8.8	10.3	-0.9	-2.1
2012	CHA	32	151	15.3	11.7	4.6	3.0
2013	CHA	33	149	12.6	14.2	-0.7	-2.3
+– 2014		34	131	9.9	9.8	0.9	-0.4
	CHA		106	8.1	8.5	0.3	-0.7
	OAK		25	1.8	1.4	0.6	0.4
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,001	230.3	205.0	33.5	11.4
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,001	230.3	205.0	33.5	11.4

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
2001	CIN	21	66	9.7	7.8	2.2	1.4
2002	CIN	22	158	19.2	17.0	2.6	0.8
2003	CIN	23	116	14.2	11.8	2.8	1.5
2004	CIN	24	161	22.1	17.2	5.6	3.7
2005	CIN	25	160	21.2	17.2	4.7	2.9
2006	CIN	26	160	20.0	18.6	2.0	0.2
2007	CIN	27	152	19.9	17.0	3.6	1.9
+– 2008		28	158	20.8	18.0	3.4	1.6
	ARI		44	5.6	5.1	0.7	0.2
	CIN		114	15.2	12.9	2.7	1.4
2009	WAS	29	159	20.2	17.1	4.0	2.2
2010	WAS	30	158	18.8	14.9	3.9	2.3
2011	CHA	31	122	8.5	10.6	-1.4	-2.6
2012	CHA	32	151	14.8	12.2	3.6	1.9
2013	CHA	33	149	14.0	12.8	2.1	0.6
+– 2014		34	131	10.4	9.4	1.7	0.5
	CHA		106	8.8	7.8	1.5	0.5
	OAK		25	1.6	1.6	0.2	-0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,001	233.6	201.7	40.9	18.7
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,001	233.6	201.7	40.9	18.7

This is Adam Dunn's first year on the Hall-of-Fame ballot.

Vote Prediction

It is an honor for Adam Dunn simply to appear on a Hall-of-Fame ballot.

Player Won-Lost Records and Adam Dunn

Batting Player won-lost records are calculated across seven components. The next table defines these components and presents Adam Dunn's (context-neutral, teammate-adjusted) career record by component.

Component	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.
Component 3: Balls not in Play	40.0	51.2	0.439
Component 4: Balls in Play	90.0	40.1	0.692
Component 5: Hits vs. Outs on Balls in Play	32.8	34.8	0.485
Component 6: Singles vs. Doubles vs. Triples	3.6	3.9	0.478
Component 7: Double Plays	2.1	1.9	0.527
Component 8: Baserunner Outs	0.8	0.7	0.561
Component 9: Baserunner Advancements	2.8	2.6	0.515

Component 3 measures the ability to draw walks (and/or hit-by-pitches) and to avoid strikeouts. Adam Dunn drew 100 or more walks eight times in his career, which translates into a lot of Component 3 wins. (He also struck out 150 or more times 12 times - so, a lot of Component 3 losses, too.)

Component 4 measures balls on which a batter makes contact - including home runs - and measures expected results based on how and where the ball was hit. That is, home runs and line drives are positive Component 4 events; pop ups and weak ground balls are negative Component 4 events. For his career, Adam Dunn hit 462 home runs with eight seasons of 38 or more home runs. Adam Dunn sometimes had trouble making contact, but when he made contact with the baseball, good things (if you were rooting for his team) frequently happened. Not surprisingly, then, Adam Dunn was excellent at Component 4.

I tend to think of Components 3 and 4 as measuring "pure hitting" (and "pure pitching"). There are no complications from fielders or a player's running ability. It's the essence of the pure batter-pitcher matchup.

The next table shows the top 50 players in career batting wins for Components 3 and 4 combined, over non-pitcher average, since 1969: in essence, the 50 best "pure hitters" of the past 50 years.

		Top 50 Pure Hitters
		eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	eWOPA
1	Barry Bonds	220.7	103.9	0.680	113.0
2	Albert Pujols	179.8	107.1	0.627	70.4
3	Mike Schmidt	161.1	90.7	0.640	66.9
4	Frank E. Thomas	155.2	88.7	0.636	66.3
5	Mark McGwire	140.9	75.0	0.653	65.0
6	Gary Sheffield	154.8	94.4	0.621	58.1
7	Manny Ramirez	150.1	92.4	0.619	57.1
8	Jim Thome	163.0	105.3	0.607	56.9
9	Alex Rodriguez	173.3	118.7	0.593	54.1
10	Jeff Bagwell	140.5	83.7	0.626	53.7
11	Rafael Palmeiro	163.5	112.0	0.593	50.9
12	Chipper Jones	148.4	95.4	0.609	49.7
13	Ken Griffey Jr.	162.0	112.2	0.591	48.4
14	Jason Giambi	132.3	84.8	0.609	47.0
15	Miguel Cabrera	142.2	94.1	0.602	46.9
16	Reggie Jackson	155.2	108.3	0.589	45.9
17	David Ortiz	145.8	100.2	0.593	45.1
18	Darrell Evans	146.3	98.6	0.597	45.0
19	Fred McGriff	145.9	99.9	0.594	44.0
20	Rickey Henderson	158.5	114.6	0.580	43.1
21	Joe L. Morgan	123.3	78.5	0.611	42.0
22	Joey Votto	108.9	65.3	0.625	41.4
23	Eddie Murray	161.2	118.7	0.576	41.3
24	Jack Clark	118.7	75.1	0.612	41.3
25	Mike Piazza	114.3	71.6	0.615	40.3
26	Todd Helton	125.6	84.5	0.598	38.2
27	Carlos Delgado	125.4	86.4	0.592	38.0
28	Edgar Martinez	113.5	75.6	0.600	37.8
29	Johnny Bench	111.5	72.3	0.607	36.5
30	Adam Dunn	130.0	91.3	0.587	36.5
31	Sammy Sosa	143.2	103.9	0.579	36.2
32	Carl Yastrzemski	112.0	74.9	0.599	36.2
33	Willie Stargell	95.0	58.0	0.621	34.8
34	Dwight Evans	133.5	98.7	0.575	34.7
35	Mike Trout	83.6	48.7	0.632	34.7
36	Edwin Encarnacion	114.3	78.8	0.592	34.6
37	Lance Berkman	110.5	73.7	0.600	34.5
38	Paul Konerko	125.4	90.4	0.581	34.4
39	Vladimir Guerrero Sr.	119.4	83.6	0.588	34.1
40	Ron Cey	110.6	74.4	0.598	33.5
41	Reggie Smith	95.0	60.2	0.612	32.7
42	Mark Teixeira	112.8	79.5	0.587	32.7
43	Dave Winfield	149.4	115.4	0.564	32.5
44	Brian Downing	114.7	82.7	0.581	32.1
45	Darryl Strawberry	95.0	61.4	0.607	31.6
46	Jose Canseco	117.6	86.0	0.578	31.5
47	Will Clark	106.2	73.2	0.592	31.3
48	Brian S. Giles	103.9	70.6	0.595	31.2
49	George Brett	130.7	100.1	0.566	30.5
50	Albert Belle	95.0	64.4	0.596	30.5

Positional Average excludes pitcher offense

Article last updated: November 26, 2019

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