The Adam Dunn Conundrum

Adam Dunn of the Chicago White Sox is a big guy.

6'6'', 285 lbs.  As the baseball fans reading this blog know he is also a national treasure for those of us who love oddball baseball stats.  Here's one - in 57% of his plate appearances this year he's walked, struck out or hit a homer.

Adam always had a limited set of skills - hit homers (400 so far) and draw walks.  Could hit around .250.

Last year he became one of the worst full time players in major league history as he hit only .159 and almost stopped hitting homers (only 11).  He had no business playing on a major league club.

Then early this year he had what was billed as a resurgence, hitting .240 in mid-May and stroking homers again.  That's faded somewhat but if you look quickly at his stats it still looks like a substantial performance improvement.

2011:  415 AB, 11 HR, 42 RBI, .159 Avg, .292 OBP, .277 Slg, .569 OPS
2012:  461 AB, 38 HR, 88 RBI, .204 Avg, .335 OBP, .484. Slg, .819 OPS  

Two significant points on Adam's 2012 performance:

First, all of his improvement is related to the 27 additional HRs he's hit so far this year.  No other part of his game has improved.  In fact, the rest of his offensive stats looks remarkably the same if you take away the 27 HRs:


YEAR   AB     H     2B   HR   BB   SO    BA   OBP   SLG   OPS
2011      415    66     16     11     75    177  .159   .292    .277     .569
2012      434    67     15     11     92    188  .154   .302    .267     .569

He's the same guy except he got his home run stroke back.

Second, on May 20 this year Dunn was hitting .247 with 23 extra base hits in 146 at bats.
In his 315 at bats since, he's hitting .184 with 30 extra base hits.  He is reverting back to his 2011 performance.

Will he be playing in the majors next year?