At Least They Can't Clinch This Weekend: Cubs vs. Cardinals, Friday 9/18, 7:15 CT

I recall the whole team being in fade mode at that point after their hot start. Dunn, as I said, did what they brought him in to do: hit.

Dunn’s defense is bad, really bad. It’s bad in ways that advanced defensive stats measure, and they say he’s amazingly bad. It’s bad in ways that no existing defensive stat measures (cutting off balls in the gap, playing balls off the wall, getting to foul balls, inspiring confidence in his fellow infielders), and I acknowledge this. If you establish a baseline UZR for Dunn that represents his true talent at all the things it measures, you should then keep deducting beyond that to find his defensive value. He gets on base a lot but runs the bases poorly and usually does so in front of the bottom of the order. That’s why I said, “Dunn is never going to be as good as some of his hitting numbers.” He’s limited. There are lots of better players than him.

Most of the time, believe it or not, it’s not a good idea, tactically, for Dunn to try to move runners over at the expense of his ability to hit the ball hard. It’s not just Dunn, this applies to most hitters. For those occasions when it is a good idea, you might consider pinch-hitting for him; most of these situations will come late in close games when lifting him for a defensive replacement might be wise anyway, considering how incredibly bad he is at defense.

A lot of people think of Adam Dunn as a superstar that doesn’t play the game right. I think that’s the wrong way to look at it. He’s like a good defensive infielder that can’t hit much, but inverted — and probably somewhat more valuable than that infielder. He’s good at hitting the ball hard, and he’s worked out an approach at the plate that gets him pitches to hit hard. He’s overrated by a lot of people, and running him out in left field every day for a season might not be the best way to utilize his talents. The Washington Nationals almost certainly overpay him to do just that, and if he only plays for teams that use him that way for the rest of his career he may never play for a winning team because (a) when you overpay and overvalue one guy it limits what you can do with the rest of your team and (b) a team that thinks Dunn is worth superstar money and a LF starting job is probably going to make other mistakes in talent evaluation as well. None of this makes him “not a winner”. If the market for Dunn rationalizes, and he winds up with an AL team, mostly DHing and making less money, he could very well play for a winner.

Bush was lucky last year. His FIP has barely changed, but his BABIP is more normal. He is giving up more fly balls than last year, but he’s not pitching to any less contact. He’s always been a contact pitcher and for the most part contact pitchers that give up as many fly balls as he does get killed by homers. This was actually true last year, too, but he was getting so lucky on hit prevention that it didn’t matter as much.

Parra… he’s getting killed on BABIP this year. He’s also walking more batters, but striking out fewer, too. That sounds more like loss of stuff or control than a change in philosophy.

Pitching to contact is great if you get ground balls. Or if you happen to be one of a handful of pitchers with sustainably low HR/FB rates.

I’m also not sure Greg Maddux would be a great coach or manager. He doesn’t seem like much of a people person. The key to his success as a player, as much as baseball intelligence, was execution. He was able to execute his pitches precisely better than almost anyone else. Guys that can locate their fastball look like geniuses.