I think it's worse in the case of Holliday because the hate for him in St. Louis is mind boggling. He is great value for his contract and has been a pretty good fielder most of his career. He regressed last year a bit but on a whole he's been a plus fielder. Plus, he's a career .292 BA, .387 OBP, .872 OPS with RISP. If you look at his career numbers, they're better than a lot of HOFer's. At least with Dunn, there is clear evidence that he sucks in some areas. Dunn is a career .223 hitter with RISP with a ton of SO. He does have a pretty good OPS with RISP but he does strike out a lot and makes a ton of outs in those situations.
It's pretty good at .399. I guess he's a walk/so/hr machine with RISP. That said, his defense was bad and there are things there with Dunn to which you can say he's not good in some areas. With Holliday, until last season, he was the only player in baseball other than Pujols that had an OPS over .900 for 6 straight years. Holliday has quietly been one of the more dominant, consistent hitters since he entered the league. I don't know, if you saw some of the stuff they were saying about him and the rest of the Cardinals offense you would see what I'm talking about. People ask me why I come in here. The answer is to save what little sanity I have left.
Yes. With runners on base, the pitcher would just nibble, resulting in either a walk or strike out most of the time.
It was maddening watching him watch strike 3 with RISP. It happened pretty often.
Dunn had some talent, but overall, he always left you wanting more.
Part of the problem is that the Reds never really had a good hitter behind him.
If you take the runs scored by Dunn and subtract his number of HR (times he drove himself in), the amount of times he scored is miniscule given his high OBP.
2008: 79 runs scored, 40 HR.. He was only driven in 39 times in 651 plate appearances! This is despite an OBP of 386! Part of the blame goes to his teammates, but he wasn't exactly a good baserunner. This part is overlooked (IMO). This is the same reasoning why Hannigan should not be the #2 hitter, despite having a respectable OBP. There's more to the game than OBP.
Add in the fact that Dunn was a horrible defender in LF and refused to move positions as a Red, and I was glad to see him leave. I didn't hate him by any means, but part of the transformation of this team was to not pay Dunn 10 million/year and invest that money in other areas where it was more productive.
[Phil ] Castellini celebrated the team's farm system and noted the team had promising prospects who would one day be great Reds -- and then joke then they'd be ex-Reds, saying "of course we're going to lose them". #SellTheTeamBob
Nov. 13, 2007: One of the greatest days in Reds history: John Allen gets the boot!
Red, that's what I was kind of alluding to earlier. There is enough there with Dunn to see why he would be frustrating to watch. Holliday is an elite player but a lot of people in St. Louis thinks he sucks.
Rick's comment on the article pretty much nails what it is about Bruce that drives us Reds fans crazy--it isn't that Jay has any more 0-4 or 3-4 days than other hitters of a comparable OPS, it's that he groups them all in the same two-week stretches!
Dunn's biggest problem was that he wasn't Albert Pujols.
He came up through the minors at the same time as Pujols, even played in the same minor league as Pujols in 2000, and was the higher ranked prospect. When Pujols busted out and became the best hitter in the game, Reds fans expected Dunn to be even better. The expectations for him after his ridiculously productive 2001 season were off the charts, and many Reds fans never forgave him for not living up to those unrealistic expectations. When Adam turned out to be 'just' a very productive hitter, rather than a once-in-a-generation hitter, many Reds fans soured on him and started to see nothing but his flaws.
Last edited by Steve4192; 12-17-2012 at 05:32 PM.
Holliday >> Dunn.
I agree with that.
Again, not saying Dunn sucked (he was the arguably the team's best player the entire time he was here), but he had weaknesses.
Dunn was not a legitimate all-star level player, in my opinion, although I know people here will disagree.
[Phil ] Castellini celebrated the team's farm system and noted the team had promising prospects who would one day be great Reds -- and then joke then they'd be ex-Reds, saying "of course we're going to lose them". #SellTheTeamBob
Nov. 13, 2007: One of the greatest days in Reds history: John Allen gets the boot!
Last edited by kaldaniels; 12-17-2012 at 05:42 PM.
I think that's what going on with Holliday right now. He isn't Pujols (who is in their prime?). Pujols had insane numbers with RISP and Cards fans think Holliday can put up those type of numbers. Yes, in comparison Holliday is "unclutch" compared to Pujols but very few players can put up a .332 BA, .472 OBP (crazy), .644 SLG, 1.116 OPS with RISP in their career.
EDIT: The only player I'm finding that come close to and surpass Pujols clutch numbers is Ted Williams. If anyone can find a player that has better clutch stats than Williams and Pujols, let me know. Essentially Pujols ruined everyone's point of view when discussing the good players in baseball.
Last edited by MikeThierry; 12-17-2012 at 06:06 PM.
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