Was Adam Dunn’s Defense Really That Bad? | Baseball Bits
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 เม.ย. 2024
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Adam Dunn defense. Oft-maligned, but always talked about. The hulking slugger Adam Dunn had a great career thanks to his power and plate discipline, but his defense was poor, which was exacerbated by the fact he played most of his career in the National League before the universal DH.
This video in particular is about 2009 Adam Dunn Nationals. In 2009, Adam Dunn put up -43 Defensive Runs Saved, the fielding metric powered by Sports Info Solutions. It's older than other fielding metrics from Statcast like Outs Above Average and its run equivalent, Fielding Run Value. Because of those -43 DRS, 2009 Adam Dunn ended up with a negative WAR aka Wins Above Replacement.
In this episode of Baseball Bits, a Foolish Baseball production, I conduct a film study using the ol' eye test to determine whether those -43 Defensive Runs Saved are even possible in modern MLB. Sure, he wasn't exactly known for his glove during his days with the Adam Dunn Reds, but -43 is impossible, right? You'll have to watch to find out.
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Defensive Runs Saved FAQ: www.fieldingbible.com/faq
Secret Base on Adam Dunn: • Adam Dunn had the weir...
Soundtrack from Maxo:
/ maxoelectronic
maxoisnuts.bandcamp.com/
If you want to see all the plays and their grades, I've put together a compilation here: th-cam.com/video/S2AdOP1t9V8/w-d-xo.html
Oh yess i aint working for another 20 minutes
I already called in sick as soon as this posted. I'm going to savor it all day long.
work can wait
@@FoolishBaseball My wife just went into labor and I told her to stop bothering me with less important things.
@@matthew01234name your kid Bailey
@@FoolishBaseballobviously
"The best offensive season in MLB history below replacement level"
Holy fk
By a lot too
@@FoolishBaseball Stats are cool
Dante Bichette?
@@Brah42Dante grades poorly in adjusted stats because of Coors and the overall high run scoring environment in his era. That negative war season was only 102 ops+ despite a nice slash line.
WAR is a STUPID stat.... means NOTHING
I remember once you said you wouldn’t make a video about Dunn if it was just about “haha three true outcomes”. This topic is definitely more unique.
thanks! yeah Secret Base definitely covered the three true outcomes
@@FoolishBaseball you would have done it better.
@@alextrivunovic644no one does Jon Bois better, no offense Foolish
@@benkelly7499 Bailey is Jon Bois biological father.
@@benkelly7499Jon is a better storyteller but he’s more of a well-rounded sports guy. Bailey probably could’ve given a more in-depth look since he’s more knowledgeable about baseball than Jon.
Weird thing about DRS is that poor defensive players on bad pitching teams will almost by-definition be worse than poor defensive players on good pitching teams. A ball hit towards Adam Dunn is worth negative DRS on average, but because Adam Dunn was on a last-place team the balls hit towards him had more men on base and fewer outs than if he was on a first-place pitching-dominant team. So odd to think that in a sport where offensive value is so minutely calculated independent of other players on the team that defensive value is SO dependent on the kinds of situations your pitcher puts you in.
That's a really great point and something I've never thought about when they calculate DWAR 🤔
When you think about it, its not just pitching where this is the case. Anecdotally I would think the caliber of the other defensive players on your team would attribute to an increased incidence of higher leverage defensive settings and therefore more opportunities for a below average defender to accumulate -rs.
Yes, but conversly a great defender would be more valuable on a team with bad pitching. And that also reflects the reality so I personally am not against that.
Came here looking for this comment. Dunn’s DRS was exaggerated because of severity of his errors being higher than on better teams. I’m curious how his UZR and other context neutral defense metrics compared for that year in question.
His UZR in that season was -36, so less than a win off the DRS calculatation. That put him above replacement on Fangraphs.@@dutchy_mkv5008
My heart is still racing after Bailey whipped out his sword as a threat.
I know, I was pretty aroused too
I do that to women a lot. They usually look in disgust and ask why it's so small and why it bends upwards
I'm glad I read this comment before watching! 😌
I'll never forget that a baseball writer once projected Adam Dunn to be a better rounded, longer lasting player than Albert Pujols after their debut seasons.
Pujols turned out to be one of the best defensive 1B ever
@@FoolishBaseballYep, him and Keith Hernandez are basically 1A 1B for the position
They’re both pretty well rounded…well if you only look at their bodies
@@FoolishBaseballwas he really that good? I knew from watching him he was good, but not that good. It's infuriating to me how first basemen seem to be almost impossible to have a positive dwar from what I've seen
@@therealmcromano319 nice pfp cool adam
Bailey I genuinely think that these videos are the best sport based videos on the entirety of TH-cam. Thanks for making baseball a little bit more enjoyable.
Thanks!
Also your videos inspired my username
“Adam Dunn is the true three true outcomes player” - Jon Bois
And yet, all I'm here to talk about is anything but the three true outcomes (balls in play)
He was the first player I viewed that way. Adam Dunn was the first hitter who made me realize that batting average really wasn't that important. At one point he even hit leadoff. Back then it was considered unconscionable to bat a high strikeout, low batting average power hitter leadoff. They did it because he got on base a ton. That's when I started figuring out OBP was more important than batting average and OPS was more important than either of them.
@@matthew01234 If all you do as a hitter is strike out 4 times and hit a home run the 5th at bat, you have an OPS of 1000 and a new season home run record. Probably an MVP award, too. All with a .200 batting average.
Kyle Schwarber: “Buddy you ain’t seen nothin yet”
@@andrewhawkins6754 Oh you would easily win the MVP and it would be unanimous. That wouldn't just be a new home run record. It would more than double the current home run record. That wouldn't just be an MVP year. It would arguably be the best season in baseball history. At the very least you would be guaranteeing your team would never get shutout at all for the entire season. And that's assuming you played with the worst offense in MLB history where no one else on the team ever scored or drove in a run all season long. Assuming your teammates provided any offensive support at all you would probably shatter the RBI record as well. When you hit 162 home runs a season a lot of them aren't just gonna be solo shots.
Adam Dunn was the perfect DH who was cursed to play his entire career in the NL when pitchers still had to hit
I don’t get why AL teams wouldn’t sign him to DH. Seems perfect to me.
@@chip2854ask the white Sox about that…
He was on the White Sox a few years.
Making Adam Dunn play outfield with the original Citi Field dimensions is one of the crueler things I’ve seen in a baseball game.
S tier foolish baseball. Fun premise and Adam Dunn footage is entertaining to watch
glad you enjoyed!
I’m getting war flashbacks to 2011 Adam Dunn, 54 OPS+ and still getting some starts at 1B for the White Sox
I don’t know .. I feel like Foolish actively leveled up in front of our eyes with this vid. Deeply analytical yet action packed with a ton of situation specific footage .. which describes most Foolish vids, but this was next level.
I've been an official scorer in professional baseball for 25 years and I will +1 to Bailey on how ridiculous the error is as a stat, at least as one used to evaluate a player's defensive ability. Some of it has to do with the way the rule is defined, particularly in that mere mental errors and misjudgments are NOT officially errors. Infielder throws to the wrong base? No error. Outfielder breaks the wrong way to a fly ball? No error.
On the other hand, I once charged an error to a player who - under the absolute letter of the law - shouldn't get one. The player was Corey Wimberly, an A's farmhand who was stuck in left on this particular day. High fly ball toward the line, he ran straight to the correct spot, set his feet, then dropped the ball Charlie Brown-style.
However, when determining ordinary effort, the rules require the OS to use the standard of an average player at that position for that level of baseball. Wimberly was one of the fastest players in professional baseball. An average player hoping to snare that ball would have to do so on a full sprint, with the wall and the rolled-up tarp looming in front of him. In other words, that catch would take extraordinary effort for an average left fielder because an average guy isn't fast enough to get there. Wimberly got charged with an E7 because he DID have the speed to get there and thus had his "full range of motion" for making the catch.
Me with Adam Dunn on my strat-o-matic team:
Opponent: I roll a 5-11.
Me: LF(X)..........another single........
I love this quote: "It's predicated on the fear of making a mistake, not the courage to make a play." A good defender will balance those out.
Loving this second channel content
HEY
this made me look at the channel name, well done lol
I hate the error stat. I hate how if a pitcher makes an error and the runner scores, it is an unearned run EVEN THO THEY EARNED IT!!!
I love you bailey
I just think it's a stupid stat. In every sport players fuck up, but only baseball do they include it as the third most important stat and show it at the end of every inning.
Maybe somebody can enlighten me
@@chrisbeaudoin9818I believe errors being a major stat comes from the extremely low standard of defence in the very early days of baseball. When teams averaged 5 errors a game it made sense to give them more priority, because they would often decide games, but it's mad that we still do it
also automatically no earned runs if you commit an error with 2 outs.
That... makes sense, though? ERA is a PITCHING stat, not a fielding stat or holistic player performance stat.
MLB Power Pros Legend, Adam Dunn.
never played it
E contact with A power is truly something
Absolutely loved the video! Always excited to see your new videos pop up in my feed.
Aww that little smile at 12:13 after making the nice play is so adorable ❤ That’s right you are nice with it little man
I gotta thank you Bailey. Without these videos, I would still be relying on fielding percentage to see who’s the best defender in the league. Phillies broadcasts think Nick Castellanos is an amazing defender because he hasn’t recorded an error since 2022 when we all know that’s not the case. Defense is much harder to measure and you’ve done a great job in getting the more obscure info out there.
Glad I could help!
Eye test buddy, if you watch the game you can perfectly tell how good or bad a fielder is. No stats required.
@@theclassygoose6384 just have to find time to watch 2500 games a year.
There was an article in The Athletic last year about how the scorekeepers have been issuing a lot fewer errors in recent years, I wonder why
@@alexparker3277 i never said you need to watch every game, if you know baseball you know how good a fielder is after a couple of games. If you can’t figure it out by then, then you’re not great at the eye test unfortunately.
Very first thing I thought of when you were explaining how all the numbers work nowadays was - eye test. And literally 10 seconds later , you brought up eye test. Made my day 🍺🍺
New dimensions and textures of what to watch for during my next MLB viewing session. Fantastic effort. You can never truly overthink what's happening in front of you.
Thanks for the video Bailey! My birthday is today and this is one of the best presents I could have got
Is that the Jim Leyland as one of your patreons?
incredible video - very fond memories of Dunn from his playing day
As a young kid from Cincinnati during Dunn’s tenure for the reds I vividly remember my dad going absolutely ballistic over Dunn doing pretty much anything, meanwhile he was my favorite player
This is the earliest I’ve ever been idk what to say.
I love you, funny internet baseball man.
Thank you, internet baseball commenter.
I don't know if it was intentionally edited like this, but there being footage of Luis Castillo after saying "being able to track a fly ball" is so funny to me as a Mets fan.
ANOTHER BANGER , BAILEY. THANK YOU
no, thank you
This brings up another point about why I dislike the universal DH. It's an interesting tradeoff to have a great hitter but poor defender that must play the field in order to bat. The rules rewarded having more complete players that could play every aspect of the game well instead of just allowing players to be locked into one-dimensional roles.
Celebrate, Don't Denigrate a Player? ✅
Answer a Deeper Question than the Title Asks? ✅
Encourage Deeper Analysis by Generating Curiosity? ✅
Use Stats In an Interesting Way and Show Your Work? ✅
Focus On a Player Who Isn't in the News? ✅
Be a Silly Lil Bailey Baseball Boi and Make Us All Laugh?✅
This was an S tier video.
Just when I thought my day couldn’t get better. Foolish Baseball comes up clutch.
My WPA increases
“muscle relaxers go brr”
-Rod Manfred
it's the only way he can tolerate baseball
The song playing at the beginning of the level 5 segment was great
the best part of this video was i got to remember jorge cantú and a sweet ball he hit out to adam dunn because i was at that game lmao. i commented that he seemed to let stuff drop in front of him all the time... at the time!
What a beautiful day, always a pleasure to get a fresh bits.
Great video as always Bailey. This one fascinates me a lot because I worked at Inside Edge for a few years and one part of the job was quantifying defensive play probabilities. I think IE's methods/calculations were different than what BIS does to calculate DRS, but figuring out the catch probabilities was always fascinating to me. Some guys like Dunn make routine plays look difficult and much better fielders can make tough plays look easy. Regardless, figuring out the in-between plays was always the toughest part.
You are by far my favorite baseball youtuber.. informative af and funny af at the same time! Thanks for brightening up my day big dawg
thanks!
@@FoolishBaseball for sure dude
Adam Dunn...one of my favorite players because his offensive contributions were offset by his defensive liabilities. YET...I have always wondered...how did he play so many years and never improve? What is the story there? Was he uncoachable? Did he simply not have the physical abilities? And why did teams put up with it? Did they see his offense as something that allowed them to simply accept his liabilities as a defender? Did they think he would get better?
I think it is correct to assume that in an era of universal DH, his career would have looked different--and lasted longer. But even so, would any team keep anyone on a roster with so much defensive liability these days? Perhaps he was a product of his era, but sometimes I wonder what managers and owners are smoking...
Your content always puts a smile on my face. 😁
A new Baseball Bits from Foolish and a Playin' Watchin' Guts from Jomboy, Jake and Joezack. Can't get any better than that on a Wednesday.
5:25 is how Castellanos goes season after season without recording an error
Adam Dunn was the second most impressive batting practice that I’ve ever seen live. I watched him pepper the scoreboard at Shea when he was still a Red.
Baseball Bits always makes me feel better
Love the vids. Greetings from The Netherlands.
great video as always
Sitting on the toilet for the next 18 minutes to watch new Foolish
I'd say that's an acceptable length of time to be on the toilet. Anything more probably excessive.
Adam Dunn is one of my favorite baseball subjects.
always love when the second channel gets some love
So glad you took a different take than Jon what a weird player, Bailey. Love your stuff
Adam Dunn And Austin Kearns came up through the local low A Dayton Dragons Inaugural season. Watched their very first professional games. Man being 14 was cool. You knew early on they were going to be good. Love ya Big Donkey 🫏
What’s good my man! @FoolishBaseball
Could u take a look at Carlos Zambrano stats and see if it’s worth a baseball bits.. It’s fascinating his baseball career but on top of that his batting skill!
Thanks again as always
Absolutely loved you picking 30 games to look at it! Sample size is large enough
I'll bring him because it's important people never forget about Raul Ibanez manning the OF. Great guy, good lefty bat, endless snuff films with the glove.
I was waiting for a Schwarber joke, but damn, 2:29 made me cackle 😂
Love the video Foolish. However on your own calculation of DRS on the Mike trout ground ball you should have found the difference not on "Bases empty, 1 out" and "Bases empty, no outs", but rather on "Bases empty, 1 out" and "A runner on first, no outs", because you are finding the difference between the expected amount of runs the offense scores in the instance that the SS makes the play and in the instance he doesn't make the play: (P(doesn't make the play)-P(makes the play)) * .5= DRS (using this method).This makes the total DRS for that play (not accounting for the Angels horrendous offensive output) (0.908-0.275) * .5= 0.3165.
I would've loved to hear about range factor.
yadier molina has a below average (for a catcher) Rangefactor/9inn, but he's usually considered one of the best catchers ever. I wonder why that stat is unkind to him
The pride of New Caney, Texas! My hometown high school's greatest ever athlete.
Dude I remember him hitting a homerun against the Cubs almost onto to rooftops in Chicago
Seeing a Jon Bois video getting mentioned makes my heart full
every time foolish baseball uploads i go “no way it’s been a month since the last one” and every time it has been and i am reminded of the unrelenting passing of time
The game over always makes me smile
Thanks for reminding me how much I hate the universal DH. Now I'm mad all over again.
What about a video about "The Art of Getting Left on Base??"
I was only gonna have one beer with lunch but Foolish posted so I'll have two
why not?
around 12:15 i think you should also have looked at the possibility of runners on 1st and 2nd, no outs, where Dunn bodyblocks the ball and comes up in time to prevent the runner from going to 3rd, but cant reasonably make a play at 1st.
The Rob Manfred calculating DRS was comedy gold
He should upload more of these second channel videos. They’re fantastic!
Jon Bois 🤝 Bailey
Putting
Adam Dunn
in perspective
Wow! 462 home runs is no joke!
I guess I hadn't realized that he mashed that many homers.
Likely to become the highest non-PED total for players who fail to make the Hall Of Fame, depending on how Carlos Delgado does with the Veterans’ Committee in coming years.
YESSSS!! Time for me to tell an anecdotal story!!!
Big reds fan, went to a game and sat in the front row of left field so I could heckle barry bonds. Ended up heckling Adam Dunn for literally never moving in the outfield. It was on real he never took more than one step towards ball unless it was hit to him. In the 9th inning they brought in Chris denorfia as a defensive replacement. First batter hits a ball into deep short and denorfia runs to back it up and runs back my drunk ass stands up and starts clapping for him in a dead silent stadium. Out of my mouth comes "that's more than Dunn ran the whole game" and the guy started laughing visibly on the field
I love your videos bro
Adam Dunn was just rocking and AWP with no armor, helmet or nades!! He is just built different
That sword convinced me to never question FB.
I love me some Dunner. Made baseball in DC so much fun.
An issue with this is that it's very hard to determine or approximate how difficult a play in the outfield is without direct comparisons in similar plays. Catches that look very hard or impossible when Dunn is the fielder can look routine or at least doable to a good OF because the initial reaction time, acceleration, and route to the ball matter so much. Simply put, everything looks harder when Dunn does it, so it's very easy to say he made a play 50% of players make when in reality it's a play a vast majority of players would make.
I am not a pro, but I fielded pop ups as an infielder from a pithing machine. There is not a more impossible catch than a 400ft straight up with weird spin(thank you juggs machine), and we made those catches on the regular. Adam Dunn is a great hitter, but an outfielder being challenged by a fly ball to the fence is not a major league outfield skill.
I saw the tweet where we asked you to make the video, ty Addison 😭
I hadn't yet realized the Adam Dunn defense season was in 2009. If it was in 2008 or before, this video wouldn't be possible.
The Big Donkey was my first favorite baseball player.
“How come good hitter WAR bad and bad hitter WAR good?!?!” had me dying😂
The other thing is that playing deep all the time means more singles on plays where it's not immediately obvious that a different outfielder playing at normal depth would have made the play.
1:48 I know some defensive metrics just "Hate" certain players for whatever reason. But the fact that MATT KEMP in the middle of winning 2 GOLD GLOVES almost had the worst season ever by DRS is wild af😂
I hope we never can actually truly quantify defensive value because we would miss out on such fun shit as this
Matt Kemp really defied the idea that being an all world athlete could make you a good outfield defender.
wake up babe Foolish Baseball just uplo....
oh right, I have no "babe" hence being a Foolish Baseball subscriber...
Bro posts as soon as I’m about to eat, saved my lunch from being boring
I strive to post during lunch time
i think adam dunn is the most adam dunn-looking guy to ever live
He certainly looks like an Adam Dunn
First time I ever saw Dunn was on TV in the early 2000s. The commentator referred to him by his full name (Adam Troy Dunn) just as Dunn blew a huge bubble with his gum while staring off into the distance. It was the perfect confluence of person and name, to the point that it stayed with me for 20 years. It was like witnessing a Platonic Form.
You should do a video on the 2002 Anaheim Angels a team full of role and no Hall of famers that won the World Series living and dying by just singles and doubles
In 2014, I got to watch this very large man play right field at then-AT&T Park. He nearly killed Jordan Danks
There were years with Dunn in left for the Reds and Soriano in left for the Cubs.. Cardinals just hit the ball to left and won tons of games
Fangraphs did a fun simulation where they made an entire team of Adam Dunns, and a few other players... He won a gold glove in CF over Dee Gordon
The fact that 10 of his 14 seasons were in the NL still baffles me. If any man needed the DH, it was Dunn.
Get her Dunn. I probably went to 15 games that summer and he was so much fun during an era of bad Nationals baseball
I remember watching this guy pitch as a Chicago White Sox player late in a game once. That was definitely an experience.
You can track live odds per pitch or play with a betting app, you could literally read a teams probability to win before a web gem vs immediately after
You should do one for the elite defender as well.
@FoolishBaseball which Maxo song is being used at 2:52? It's always been my favorite, but I haven't been able to track it down on soundcloud.
Foolish Baseball = S Tier Baseball Vids
Thanks!
@@FoolishBaseball The main channel is SS tier though
@@andrewhawkins6754 Fax
11:10
We trade Pena, you'll have to start Hatteberg at first. Luckily we have Hatteberg at home.
Hatteberg at home...
Wanted to play for a contender, played 14 seasons in the show, but never saw a playoff game, just such a sad story.