So far AD'S season has seen several ups and downs. He has four distinct streaks - two hot and two cold.
From these numbers it is obvious that AD's streaks tend to run towards the extremes. When he is hot he can carry a team and when he his cold you might as well send up Juan Castro to pinch-hit for him.Code:DUNN UP DOWN UP DOWN PIT/PA 3.6 4.5 4.1 5.0 OBP 0.436 0.300 0.421 0.250 SLG 0.735 0.273 0.896 0.143 OPS 1.171 0.573 1.317 0.393 K% 20.5% 40.0% 29.8% 46.9% BB% 12.8% 12.0% 15.8% 9.4% R/PG 4.0 4.6 5.9 3.1
1)He sees many more pitches when he is cold. This seems to go against the suggested wisdom that he should be patient and wait for a pitch that he can drive.
2)Even though he is much more patient during his cold streaks he draws less walks. In his latest streak he is seeing roughly 5 pitches per at-bat but has drawn only 3 walks in 32 PA. Being more selective is not helping him draw walks.
3)This team goes as AD goes. In his two hot streaks the Reds have averaged almost 5 runs a game. In his two cold streaks that average drops to roughly
3.8 run per game.
4)Where AD hits in the lineup seems to make little difference to how he performs. In his first hot streak he hit 2nd a majority of the time. In his second hot streak his at-bats came exclusively in the 5th and 6th spots in the batting order.
So it would seem that the team will have to ride out the ups and downs with Dunn. Take the good with the bad it seems. Collectively he is still putting up some pretty good numbers.
During the Sunday Game Thread someone bemoaned the fact that AD had no protection in the 6th hole and offered that up as a reason why he wasn't hitting. Here is a cursory study that seems to contradict that assertion.
I looked at AD's best and worst seasons OPS-wise (2004 and 2006). I logged the players who hit behind Adam during those two seasons and then weighted their OPS-es to come up with a weighted-average OPS for the hitters for those two seasons.
In 2004 AD recorded his high in OPS at .957. However during 2004 the weighted OPS of the hitters who batted behind him was only .757. In 2006 he had worst season OPS-wise at .855. But you can that the hitters who hit behind him were much stronger. They compiled a weighted OPS of .835 - nearly 80 points higher than in 2004.Code:2004 2006 OPS 0.957 0.855 PROTECT 0.757 0.835 GRIFFEY 3 28 PA-2ND 0 144
The three players who hit behind AD in 2004 were Jimenez, Pena and Larue. In 2006 they were Encarnacion, Kearns and Griffey. Which threesome seems likely to offer more protection? I would contend the 2006 group.
Another item I would like to point out is that Junior rarely protected AD in 2004 (3 games), but batted him much more often in 2006 (28 games).
Some say that the 2nd spot in the lineup is a the magic spot for Adam. Interestingly he did not have a single PA in his best season (2004), but had roughly 1/5 of his PAs in the second spot in his worst season (2006).
This was a quick study but it seems to indicate that the amount of 'protection' AD receives has little bearing on how he performs.
