Adam Dunn's name has come up in trade rumors over and over both before the trade deadline and now that he has reportedly been placed on waivers by the Nationals.
The chances that the Giants are able to acquire him are slim at best but is he really a good fit for the team?
Some say that he would almost assuredly lead the team to a parade down Market Street, that he is the missing piece in the lineup. After looking at the numbers I have to say that unless Dunn has a crazy hot last two months of the season any trade that includes one of our pitchers is a push and doesn't help the chances.
Let's do our best to break down what kind of an effect he would have on the team.
To date he has posted a .277/ .365/ .578, a career year for him.
The ZIPS projection system says that he will likely regress a little the rest of the way hitting .263/ .407/ .544.
That would give him an over all line of .273/ .370/ .567. That is still a very good line but means that he will most likely hit for less power and have less walks then he currently has.
I did a slight park adjustment for AT&T park on his numbers which is pretty small because there are not too many home games left which gave us a line of .263/ .407/ .538
Taking these numbers you get that Adam Dunn is worth approximately 11.7593 runs above replacement (14.7 Batting, -5.904 fielding, -4.1667 1b adjustment, 7.13 replacement level adjustment). That is worth a little over 1 win the rest of the way.
Now what it would cost to get him is important. The cost is rumored to be either Jonathan Sanchez or Madison Bumgarner. Simply extrapolating from each current WAR per game they are worth 0.86 and 0.61 wins above replacement each. In addition they would most likely be replaced with someone who is very close to replacement level in a AAA guy or the return of Todd Wellemeyer.
In addition there is the production that we are currently getting at first base. Let's say that Adam Dunn takes playing time away from Pat Burrell who is project to be worth just under 0.5 wins the rest of the season.
Taking this all into consideration we have Dunn worth 1.18 wins – 0.86 (trade of Sanchez) -0.44 (Replacement of Burrell in lineup) gives you a total of -0.12 wins.
If you replace Sanchez with Bumgarner you get 0.13 wins.
Either way you slice it the trade looks to be pretty close to break even. A big part is the cost of one of our pitchers. If the cost comes way down this could make sense and be worth around 1 win that could be very important but at the current rate it seems to be a push that doesn't male a huge difference with out Dunn playing out his mind well.
If your on Twitter you should definitely follow the The Crazy Crabbers. If you're not you should really consider joining, lots of good stuff going on there.
Well considering we haven't heard of any claim being put in on Dunn, I would say we're just dealing with Semantics at this point, and all that math you just did was a complete and total waste of time.... But thanks for doing it anyway. Informative and a good read nonetheless
ReplyDeleteFor me doing math is never a waste of time. Thanks for reading.
ReplyDeleteWe should have some more info on the claims in a couple of days or maybe sooner.
Dunn would be a great presence in the clubhouse and his power would be amazing to have. If we can lock him into a multi-year deal after this that'd be great too. Also I agree, math is never a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteClaim has been placed. No way I give up a member of the starting rotation for him, and he is a 2 month rental right? Horrible defense and bad career numbers at AT&T.....no way. Rather stick with what we have already and pick up a clean up hitter in the off season.
ReplyDelete