Adam Dunn is a Statistical Marvel

Posted on February 18, 2013 by William J. Tasker

Dunn

Adam Dunn is a statistical marvel. The only other player that has as many statistical anomalies is Juan Pierre. And the weird thing is that they are polar opposites as hitters. Dunn has a low contact percentage and a high homer and walk percentage. Pierre has a high contact percentage and the lowest homer and a low walk percentage. But I’ve already studied Juan Pierre, so this post deals with Adam Dunn. And yes, he bounced back a bit from his historically bad 2011, but that doesn’t mean that his 2012 wasn’t statistically amazing as well. Dunn is fascinating in so many ways that he is a category all by himself. There is no one else like him in baseball.

First, let’s start out looking at his entire career, which started in 2001. What I have done is limit all players since 2001 to those who have had at least 6,000 plate appearances. There are 38 players who fit that category. Dunn’s place among these players is totally unique. Then I will look at his last three years, two of which have been somewhat acceptable and one that was historically bad. (more…)

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Keppinger and His Contact Bat Sign With the White Sox

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Jonathan C. Mitchell

Kepp

Free agent utility infielder Jeff Keppinger has agreed to a three-year deal with the Chicago White Sox worth $12M in what could be a bargain if Keppinger, one of the best contact hitters in the game, can keep his line-drive rate and BABIP up.

Last season, with the Tampa Bay Rays, Keppinger hit .325/.367/.439 with 127 wRC+; the second best mark of his career. Keppinger maintained his high contact rates, striking out in less than 7.5% of his plate appearances, and posted the second highest line-drive rate of his career at 23.2%.

Line-drives have the best chance of falling for hits so it was no surprise that his BABIP was nearly a career high at .332, and, for a man who rarely hits the ball over the fence or strikes out, his overall average will likely be close to his BABIP and heavily influence his offensive production at the plate. Take a look at his BABIP compared to his average: (more…)

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Some Completely Useless But Fun Numbers From The 2012 MLB Regular Season

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Andrew Martin

The 2012 baseball regular season was one of excitement and surprises. Only part of the story is what was seen from game to game, and taking a closer look at numbers can bring even more richness to what transpired over the past six months. I love statistics, particularly when they are within the context of baseball, and while completely useless, there are all sorts of interesting numbers from this past year that elaborate on another great season. Just a few that I found include:

***Knuckleball pitchers are known for their inability to hold base runners, as evidenced by the Niekro brothers, Charlie Hough, Tom Candiotti, and Tim Wakefield, who allowed a combined 2,000 stolen bases during their illustrious careers. By comparison only 7 players even attempted to steal against R.A. Dickey this season, with only 4 (Everth Cabrera, Todd Frazier, Dexter Fowler, and Jose Reyes) being successful. (more…)

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Bautista and Encarnacion Developing into Quite the Combo

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Michael Schwartze

We all know about Jose Bautista’s ridiculous career turnaround. The guy came out of nowhere and is again one of the top players in the league so far this year. Well the Blue Jays have another surprise story this year in Edwin Encarnacion and together the two have become one of the best one two punches in all of baseball.
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Surprises in Early Offensive Numbers

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Jonathan C. Mitchell

We are more than halfway through the month of April and most teams have already played double-digit games. This is not a big sample size but there have been some surprises in the beginning of this long season, from the Los Angeles Dodgers 9-1 start to the St. Louis Cardinals scoring the most runs in the game despite the face of the franchise and future hall-of-famer Albert Pujols leaving for the Los Angeles Angels.

And, to our surprise, there have been some major overachievers and some major underachievers, including the aforementioned Albert Pujols who has yet to hit a homerun and is hitting only .268/.318/.366 through his first 44 plate appearances outside of St. Louis red. Here are a few of the statistical surprises so far this season:

The “No Walk” club includes some surprising names as well as some you might expect to see (min 30 PAs) with three Texas Rangers appearing on the list: (more…)

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My 2012 Predictions: AL Central

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Jonathan C. Mitchell

I am continuing my 2012 prediction series by revealing my AL Central standings and a few positive and negative predictions for each time. In case you missed it, I revealed my AL East predictions already and we, as a staff, revealed some of our overall MLB predictions. Enjoy. (more…)

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11 Bold Predictions for 2012

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Michael Schwartze

A lot of writers over at Fangraphs have been launching their “10 Bold predictions for 2012” and I have enjoyed it and like the idea so I thought I would put together my own bold predictions for this upcoming season. I felt like throwing in a bonus prediction though so I give you 11 bold predictions. The predictions come in no particular order. Let me know what you think. And remember these are BOLD predictions.
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2012 – The Year of the Laboratory?

Posted on February 22, 2012 by William J. Tasker

There are a surprising number of experiments going on in Major League Baseball for this coming season. Players are trying out new positions, relief pitchers are trying to be starting pitchers. Heck, even the Yankees are trying to be cost conscious. Strange things are happening in a training camp near you. With all that is happening, you will need a scorecard to track all the goings on. We at MLB Dirt are happy to help. What follows are the experiments happening all over baseball plus this writer’s take on whether the lab results will be positive or negative. Here we go. Got your pencil handy?

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Comeback Player of the Year Candidate: Shin-Soo Choo

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Michael Schwartze

The other day I posted an article on how I thought Adam Dunn would bounce back this year and be a candidate as the comeback player of the year. I thought why not continue with this topic and talk about other guys that I view as a comeback player of the year candidate. Next up is Cleveland Indians right fielder, Shin-Soo Choo.

Prior to last year, Choo had been posting great numbers year after year. Our own Jonathan Mitchell wrote an article prior to the 2011 season on just how underrated Choo is. Many expected big things from Choo in 2011 including myself. Unfortunately, Choo started off the year slow and was sidelined for much of 2011 with a broken thumb after being hit by a pitch during the middle of June. He did comeback in mid-August to finish out the year strong though. Overall in 2011 he hit .259/.344/.390 with 8 homeruns and 12 stolen bases in 358 plate appearances. Not horrible but it just wasn’t what he had posted in the last couple years and not what people expected of him. With 2011 behind him though, I think Choo is due to bounce back.

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Come Back Player of the Year Candidate: Adam Dunn

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Michael Schwartze

Adam Dunn was horrible in 2011, and I mean horrible. He was signed by the White Sox in hopes of providing huge pop in the middle of the lineup but he posted some of the worst offensive numbers in the league. Prior to 2011, Dunn’s career triple slash line was .250/.381/.521 with a very impressive 354 homeruns and 880 RBI. He typically hit near 40 homeruns and 100 RBI. Last year though, Dunn hit .159/.292/.277 with only 11 homeruns in 496 plate appearances. He had a -2.9 WAR which ranked dead last amongst players with at least 450 plate appearances. He also had the highest K% in the league with 35.7%. Yes he was very disappointing but the hardest part to swallow for the team is that he made $12M last year and will be making $14M in 2012. He is under contract through 2014.

Despite a huge decline last year, I think that Dunn is capable of turning it around for this year and that his name will be talked about in the Come Back Player of the Year discussion. While I do not think he will go back to hitting around 40 homeruns, I think we could see him hit in the 25-30 homerun range with an average around .240.

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