I'm looking forward to reading Tango demonstrate that (Runs plus RBI)/PA is a better indicator of contribution than OPS+. I'm not sure whether he subtracts HR in that or not.

Caller: And hit home runs.
Marty: No, unh-uh. Home runs are incidental.
....
He was paid to hit home runs

Derrrr...

And since when is driving in 100 runs not good?

And since when is driving in 100 runs not good?
Page 1 of 1 pages

when it's "barely"


I don't understand this guys comment of separating left handers, is there some type of different skill set that makes a left hander rbi guy more valuable than a right handed rbi guy? I mean are there 1, 2 or 20 right handed batters ahead of Dunn on that list?

I guess Marty gets paid to spew ########.

This is actually kind of sad.

And since when is driving in 100 runs not good?
Page 1 of 1 pages

when it's "barely"

Right and when the player is a terrible defender and terrible baserunner playing in an offensive park. Then said player could conceivably be "not good"....or at least not as good as his OBP would lead you to believe. Shove OBP down the throat of someone who is aware of the player's deficiencies and context enough times and you may well get a reaction like Marty's.

Shove OBP down the throat of someone who is aware of the player's deficiencies and context enough times and you may well get a reaction like Marty's.

In light of the Brennamans' love affair with Sean Casey, I'm thinking the issue is batting average and strikeouts.

Obviously Adam Dunn has his weaknesses.

But 99% of the time a guy gets applauded for driving in 100 runs. Adam gets criticised because it's "not enough" because of all the homers he hits. How does that make any sense? Why is a player with 25 HR and 95 RBI better than a player with 40 HR and 105 RBI? Marty is a tool.

Marty's just pissed about that "Adam from Milwaukee" thing.

"Do you have your shirt on?"

40 or more HR, 100 or fewer RBIs

1 Barry Bonds 90 45 2003
2 Ken Griffey 90 40 1994
3 Adam Dunn 92 40 2006
4 Duke Snider 92 40 1957
5 Darrell Evans 94 40 1985
6 Mickey Mantle 94 40 1960
7 Alfonso Soriano 95 46 2006
8 Matt Williams 96 43 1994
9 Hank Aaron 96 40 1973
10 Harmon Killebrew 96 45 1963
11 Hank Aaron 97 44 1969
12 Rico Petrocelli 97 40 1969
13 Mickey Mantle 97 42 1958
14 Davey Johnson 99 43 1973
15 Adam Dunn 100 40 2008
16 Paul Konerko 100 40 2005
17 Sammy Sosa 100 40 1996
18 Ryne Sandberg 100 40 1990

Maybe on one of these radio shows, he's going to break down crying telling a Sarah Silverman-style story where Mr. Dunn is playing the part of Joe Franklin?

Right and when the player is a terrible defender and terrible baserunner playing in an offensive park. Then said player could conceivably be "not good"....or at least not as good as his OBP would lead you to believe. Shove OBP down the throat of someone who is aware of the player's deficiencies and context enough times and you may well get a reaction like Marty's.

I don't think anyone is really saying anything about Dunn as a complete player, heck Marty didn't even bring up defense, he brought up strictly drive in runs, and the barely comment. Martys complaints against Dunn is totally irrational, I can see complaining about him like Harvey does, I can see bad mouthing him as a complete player even, but when it comes from Marty it seems as if it's personal.

Right and when the player is a terrible defender and terrible baserunner playing in an offensive park.

Well, Bill James has Dunn at +6 in 08 and at +3 in 07 in his baserunning scores, so I don't think that "terrible baserunner" is an accurate description.

Well, Bill James has Dunn at +6 in 08 and at +3 in 07 in his baserunning scores, so I don't think that "terrible baserunner" is an accurate description.

*bursts out laughing*

Not that it means everything, but a 75% SB seems pretty impressive for a man of Dunn's build.

Well, Bill James has Dunn at +6 in 08 and at +3 in 07 in his baserunning scores, so I don't think that "terrible baserunner" is an accurate description.

Clearly, Marty was unaware of this.

Dunn gets a bad rap as a baserunner because he doesn't steal bases much and is a poor defender, so, naturally, that of course means that he's a terrible baserunner all around. But, of course, that's not really the case. He's not a very good baserunner, but he's fine.

First of all, James counts GIDP in with baserunning. Dunn's good at avoiding the DP. Second, while he's clearly not very aggressive on the base path (particularly when it comes to going first to third), he also gives away very few outs on base.

For being a slugging outfielder, he's acceptable as a baserunner. Those who knock him for it are just looking for a reason to knock him.

As for the actual exchange, I agree with #5 completely.

First of all, James counts GIDP in with baserunning. Dunn's good at avoiding the DP. Second, while he's clearly not very aggressive on the base path (particularly when it comes to going first to third), he also gives away very few outs on base.

Sounds like a sneaky way of trying to bring up on-base percentage. And I told you that we're not talking about that!
[Hangs up]

Might it not be that Dunn's career .225 BA and .416 OBP with RISP are what's frustrating Marty? Big powerful guy who rarely gets hits in clutch situations is probably overrated by OBP.

Well, he said we can't talk about Dunn's OBP. Can we talk about his teammates? Because if their OBP sucks, then who exactly is he supposed to be driving in?

Dunn's Career: .247/.381/.518
Dunn's Career w/RiSP: .225/.416/.474

If I were a sportswriter, I'd have to point out the jump in walk rate with RiSP and therefore conclude that he is a feared hitter and pitchers are pitching around him because they're scared of him. Next stop, HoF.

If I were a sportswriter, I'd have to point out the jump in walk rate with RiSP and therefore conclude that he is a feared hitter and pitchers are pitching around him because they're scared of him. Next stop, HoF.

Too bad laid back white guy on a non-contender does not translate into FEAR!!!!

as for this, I can't believe how these idiots never realize that you know, had the Reds not keep putting the likes of Corey Patterson in the top of their lineup, they might occasionally have a couple of guys on the bases when Dunn hits a dinger, and if you average more than 1.5 guys on the bases when he hits a HR, he'd easily go over 100 RBI, that he doesnt' have 100 RBI is a testimony of how ridiculasly bad the rest of the team were at getting on the damn bases.

The Reds easily had the worst offense in their division last year, and that was with Dunn 3/4 of the time. 2009 isn't going to be pretty.

Marcel #23 wins the thread.

I get so blasted tired

This must be a generational or geographic thing but I don't think I've ever had a conversation with a person who used this phrase. Maybe it's Marty because I've noticed during his Fox telecasts he often uses phrases I like this.

Maybe he watched a lot of Star Wars.

I had no idea that Dunn has hit 40 home runs (I mean, exactly 40 home runs) each of the last 4 seasons. That's pretty impressive in a not-really-important kind of way.

All:

It is personal with Marty. I listen to a lot of Reds games (MLB.audio is wonderful) and over the years you could hear things evolve from distaste to disappointment to frustration to overt agitation to anger to venom.

A few examples which can be found somewhere on the Internet:

--Marty refers to Adam as a "clown" in left field
--Marty spends time over two seasons tracking Adam failing to hit a sac fly with a runner on third and less than two out
--Marty openly mocks Adam sitting in the dugout wiping off his face after scoring a run
--Dunn mentions to a reporter that his mother has stopped listening to games because Marty's rants make her cry. In response Marty suggests that Adam's mom should teach her son to play defense
--After not being traded during the 2007 season Dunn tells reporters he's only sad for his family who "hate" the Brennamans

You really had to hear it game after game to understand the level of vitriol. Pretty much everything about Adam made Marty angry.

As the famous baseball saying goes, Adam p*ssed him off just standing there......................

And if I may be so bold I suspect Marty's animus springs from a combination of the following:

--Adam is clearly very talented
--He hasn't really improved. While still valuable that has been a disappointment
--His defense regressed from actually ok to laughable in 2006 before picking back up to just bad. That has been a sore point since about 2005.
--Adam is a carefree guy with a sense of humor. As the other issues arose Marty interpreted that as Adam not giving a sh*t.
--The Reds have been a bad team
--In their one season to do something special, 2006, Adam tanked the last two months of the season sabotaging their chances.

That last one was the tipping point for Marty. Like most of his ilk he places a LOT of emphasis on "clutch" performance and Adam failed completely when the Reds still had a chance at sneaking away with a division title.

That the two best players on the Reds, Dunn and Griffey, just were not interested in being leaders and seemed to "accept" the team being bad drove Marty nuts. Marty couldn't go after Junior so all of his anger, all of his HATE was directed toward Adam.

That's my two cents guesswork........

Harveys...Doesn't the lingering Pete Rose Effect come into play here?

Marty was constantly building up the hustling, scraping lil guy with the uni-filth (fill in your favorite Freel here!) and yapping about the good old days of Pete's hustle and how most of today's players don't have "it" (just as the camera was panning on a nose-picking Dunn in the dugout)

Repoz:

Sure. But Marty has been harping on the need for guys to be like Pete for 30 years. That's a given. I was speaking to things more Adam-specific.

It's coming up on 40 years.

This must be a generational or geographic thing but I don't think I've ever had a conversation with a person who used this phrase. Maybe it's Marty because I've noticed during his Fox telecasts he often uses phrases I like this.

I don't think it's generational, or maybe it's unique to Marty's generation, because my grandfather was about thirty years older than Marty and he detested Marty's use of those little phrases.

It is personal with Marty. I listen to a lot of Reds games (MLB.audio is wonderful) and over the years you could hear things evolve from distaste to disappointment to frustration to overt agitation to anger to venom.

How does this not get Brenneman fired? I've never heard a hometeam announcer consitently rag on a star player.

35
It's mighty hard to fire a HOF announcer.

And it's a vicious cycle: Marty's HOF induction turned him from merely a windbag to a deafening pontificator. Rinse & repeat.

Bc Marty has been bigger than any single player this decade. The Cincy populace mostly sided with him in his squabbles with Griffey and Dunn.

HW, why do you think that Dunn "tanked" the end of 2006? He certainly slumped and may have had a nagging injury I can't recall now (he played thru them and never #######), but I don't remeber watching him and thinking he was dogging it.

It's mighty hard to fire a HOF announcer.

It's harder to market a product when a team employee is running down the merchandise.

I'm not familiar with the Cincinnati dynamic, and have never actually listened to Brenneman, but I can't imagine Phil Rizzuto getting away with bashing the Yankees start, back in his day. Tony Kubek was run out of town for merely being honest about the team, much less having a vendetta.

Is Brenneman that much bigger than Kubek?

snapper:

Marty was criticized by the local paper for going after Adam and called into the local radio show to have the host ask callers if they objected. My understanding is that it was 3 hours of folks telling Marty to "keep telling it like it is". Locals might remember this episode. I heard it from my relatives who live in the area and were flabbergasted by the level of animus from the fan base toward a player.

MV:

I meant his performance tanked. I didn't mean to suggest that Adam was loafing. Adam's August and September numbers were abysmal.

My personal opinion is that Adam was just out of gas. He came into camp looking heavy and never seemed to lose the suet. That's another thing that has bugged everyone around the Reds. Adam came into the league a rangy 250ish pounds and by 2006 was approaching 3 bills. He shed about 20 before the 2007 season and mostly kept it off since that time.

But it was clearly evident. And to Marty just one more signal that Adam wasn't serious about being a ballplayer nor helping the team win.

Fairly or unfairly.......

Marty was criticized by the local paper for going after Adam and called into the local radio show to have the host ask callers if they objected. My understanding is that it was 3 hours of folks telling Marty to "keep telling it like it is". Locals might remember this episode. I heard it from my relatives who live in the area and were flabbergasted by the level of animus from the fan base toward a player.

Harvey:

I think the Yankee fans would have backed Kubek too, but Steinbrenner has never put up with any criticism from his announcers, to the point that it was absurd.

I think announcers should be able to speak their minds, honestly, but it seems Brenneman has crossed the line from criticism to personal vendetta, and I can't see how the Cincy ownership/management puts up with it.

Just to quibble, Marty Brennaman was never inducted into the HOF.

Rinse & repeat.

I thought you could only win the Spink Award once.

Dammit, Dan, you could have said so before I set the place on fire.

Just to quibble, Marty Brennaman was never inducted into the HOF.

Marty thinks otherwise.

snapper:

Repoz and Traderdave can speak to Reds fans better than I. Personally, I want to believe it's just a loud minority who like to complain about "lazy, rich players". And Marty exploits that mindset.

Folks have to remember that the flagship station for the Reds reaches a long way into Kentucky and West Virginia. Or used to. These folks maybe get to Cincy for a game once a year. Everything they know about the Reds is via Marty. Even in this day and age of mass communication.......

Marty thinks otherwise.

Marty "thinks" a lot of things!

There's gotta be some sort of snappy term (ala "Godwin's Law") that we can come up with for the baseball pedant's version of the writers and broadcasters aren't really in the HOF argument on a message board.

Chassing up a thread?

Well, he said we can't talk about Dunn's OBP. Can we talk about his teammates? Because if their OBP sucks, then who exactly is he supposed to be driving in?

OBPs, 2008:
Patterson .238
Keppinger .310

OBPs, 1975:
Rose .406
Griffey .391

Folks have to remember that the flagship station for the Reds reaches a long way into Kentucky and West Virginia.

And to Chicago.

In spite of Dunn's defense, I hope the Cubs sign him to play corner outfield. I've long been a fan of his, and think that he's gotten a really bad rap.

If nothing else they can move him to first after Lee's contract is up in 2010 and find another corner outfielder.

I assume Adam Dunn is Joe Morgan's favorite player, since Joe thinks consistency is the key to winning, and Dunn is probably the most consistent hitter (on a year to year basis) in baseball history.

Dan:

Anything longer than 2 years is risky.

And if Cubs fans got annoyed with Soriano and before that Alou....well.....that ain't nothing once Dunn pulls a gaffe or two....

Anything longer than 2 years is risky.

And if Cubs fans got annoyed with Soriano and before that Alou....well.....that ain't nothing once Dunn pulls a gaffe or two....

It probably is risky, but I'm honestly convinced that the Cubs have a limited window that may not go past 2010. If we have to pay him to be mediocre on a crappy team, it's easily worth it if we get to the playoffs twice more.

Is Brenneman that much bigger than Kubek?

Yes. Marty's the last link to the Big Red Machine. There are some marketing pluses that come with that.

Actually, as someone who lives close to Cinci and often catches games on both the radio and TV, the all Reds announcers hate most of their players. They hate Dunn (gone), Encarnacion (the infamous "he's not clutch"), they never cared for Felipe Lopez while he was there, Griffey didn't exactly get a hero's send off, etc. To be fair, they've had some bad players, but the Reds really come down hard on their own twam (and Jeff Brantley's just as bad an announcer as he was a pitcher later in his career).

In spite of Dunn's defense, I hope the Cubs sign him to play corner outfield.

Adam Dunn really needs to play LF for the Braves next year. Yes, his defense is bad. He hit more homers than the entire Braves outfield combined last year. He may be the only option on the FA market that can merely offset Francoeur's out-sink in RF. I'll take six and a half innings of Adam Dunn and two of Gregor Blanco over, well, Gregor Blanco, any day.

As it looks like the Angels won't get Teixeira or Manny, Dunn would be a perfect addition to the corner OF/DH rotation; you get his bat, you can minimize his defensive weaknesses, etc. But it will never happen.

Actually, as someone who lives close to Cinci and often catches games on both the radio and TV, the all Reds announcers hate most of their players. They hate Dunn (gone), Encarnacion (the infamous "he's not clutch"), they never cared for Felipe Lopez while he was there, Griffey didn't exactly get a hero's send off, etc. To be fair, they've had some bad players, but the Reds really come down hard on their own twam (and Jeff Brantley's just as bad an announcer as he was a pitcher later in his career).

It's always seemed to me like the like the crappy players because they "play hard" but hate the good players because they aren't as good as they should be in the opinion of the announcers.

Repoz and Traderdave can speak to Reds fans better than I. Personally, I want to believe it's just a loud minority who like to complain about "lazy, rich players". And Marty exploits that mindset

It seems to me call-in shows are not a good indication of the pulse of the fan that much at all. If you listened to call-in shows in Houston for the last 6-10 years of his career, you'd think Astros fans hated Jeff Bagwell and wanted him gone and that currently Lance Berkman is a fat guy who jokes around too much and doesn't show any leadership. But at the games you can see that most fans love these guys.

Dunn is just the kind of guy that's an easy target for certain types of fans. There's a lot of guys out there who think, "I might not be able to hit a baseball 500 feet, but at least I could hustle and work hard." Fans who wrap way too much emotion into their teams tend to hate guys who don't seem to care as much as they do.

Phillips is the only guy who gets consistent praise from the broadcasters even though he occasionally stops to admire his own HR or mouths off. Hopefully they will also embrace Votto and Bruce.

If Cubs fans get annoyed with Soriano in the field, then they're jackasses. With Sosa and even with Dawson, I never expected to see a runner get thrown out at home plate (though I attended a game where Dawson made a perfect throw to nail a guy at home plate to preserve a tie). With Cubs outfielders, it was like praying for a blocked field goal or a penalty flag on an 85 yard TD reception; sure it happens, but not often enough to be anything other than a wistful hope. I'll trade a few Oh-my-God-what-happened-I-looked-away-to-reach-for-my-beer-because-that-play-is-sooo-routine-and-now-the-game-is-tied-and-there's-a-runner-on-second-base moments for the ability to make most routine plays and throw some runners out on the bases.

I agree with DTM. The Cubs have too many big time contracts to older players cluttering up the payroll for them not to take their shots now. Going past three years with Dunn also means he could land at 1B when Lee's contract expires after the 2010 season. My concern would be that if Dunn loses some batting average and power, he could become a pretty crappy player pretty quickly.

Without watching Dunn perform all that often, it's difficult for me personally to understand how could anyone think that Dunn doesn't care after reading that he played with a hand that was broken twice during 2005 without even letting the team X-ray him and producing his customary 40 homers (old BBTF thread about it). The team wasn't even in the pennant race. Maybe stupid, but damn, sounds like a gamer to me.

Thomas:

But Adam cannot make most of the routine plays. He's not Kevin Reimer, but he's a poor outfielder.

Posada:

At this point Adam could pull a "Black Knight" and Marty would sneer. It's pathological.......

He's going to love Ramon Hernandez's matador approach to balls in the dirt.

For the life of me I can't figure out why the Giants don't go after Dunn. He's the guy who will be most likely to put balls in the water, which is really all SF fans want. Matsui would also be a good fit, IMO, if he is healthy enough to play defense.

30 posts since:

It's mighty hard to fire a HOF announcer.

and the names Jon Miller and Peter Angelos haven't come up once? I was going to suggest that all the O's fans are out standing in line trying to exchange those Teixeira jerseys, but Dan and Charlie have found the time to chime in. A puzzlement...

For the life of me I can't figure out why the Giants don't go after Dunn.

Because, as Brian Sabean himself told me in the email he sent me yesterday:

With the continued development of our young players, such as Lewis, Ishikawa and Sandoval, we will increase our run production from within.

Just no room for someone like Dunn, obviously.

Yeah, Dunn seemed to make dumbass plays almost every game against the Cubs. He also seems to kill Cubs' pitchers. My fear with Dunn in RF, according to Cubs' brass a tougher position than CF, is that it might compound the effects of having a bad CF (Kosuke or Reed) and a mediocre LF. Dunn would still probably be a net upgrade for the Cubs, but I probably would prefer Milton Bradley. Bradley would mean a lot of DeRosa in RF as an injury replacement, though.

we will increase our run production from within.

Has he tried a sack of White Castles?

With the continued development of our young players, such as Lewis, Ishikawa and Sandoval, we will increase our run production from within.

That's a pretty cynical response. It doesn't seem that Dunn would block any of those players. After all, couldn't the Giants increase their run production by replacing Randy Winn with Adam Dunn? Lewis could move to RF. Ishikawa could play 1B. Sandoval could play catcher and 3B. Heck, they could probably get something spiffy for Winn in trade if they eat half to two-thirds of his salary.

Jon Miller and Peter Angelos

that still burns, but there are many newer transgressions to vent about.



Has he tried a sack of White Castles?

you're my hero.

YOU KNOW, IT'S NOT EASY BEING A BASEBALL FAN IN OHIO....

IF MARTY IS ONE END OF THE SPECTRUM WITH THE REDS (VITRIOL TOWARDS THE TEAM), THEN TOM HAMILTON AND THE INDIANS CREW ARE THE OTHER (PRAISE AND OVERCONFIDENCE TO A FAULT)!!!

TO BE FAIR, IN THE LAST REAL WINNING SEASON THE REDS HAD 10 YEARS AGO (1998) MARTY WAS PRETTY AFFABLE.

I think you mean '99, and that was before he won the Frick award. That plaque lit a fire under his love affair with his own voice. He's been insufferably egotistical ever since.

As an Indians fan living in the Cincinnati suburbs it is amazing to see how much this town follows Marty's lead. I haven't heard a good word here about Dunn. It is weird because each game I've attended the last couple years he seemed to do something big to help the team win. In two games in particular he hit game ending homers to beat the Indians. One was a grand slam off Wickman which really hurt as I had been talking crap for most of the game as the Tribe was winning. I think Marty has gotten appreciably worse since Joe Nuxhall stopped being his partner a few years before he passed on. Nuxhall as an ex-player seemed to temper Brennaman's oxerboard criticism of players.

Maybe Brennaman's time is slipping away - making it personal like that, takes a business relationship to another level. On the other hand all the bulletpoints Harvey listed about Dunn underachieving, simultaneously expecting to be paid top scale, is very difficult to stomach by any Reds fan watching in person, on TV, listening on MLB radio, or even seeing his ESPN lowlights on Baseball Tonight defensively, base running, non clutch hitting, and don't forget the Dunn penchant for strike outs. Don't forget either clubhouse influence and leadership ability, most likely lack of - which Reds players went to management complaining about all the attention Josh Hamilton was getting in Cincinnati two years ago?

which Reds players went to management complaining about all the attention Josh Hamilton was getting in Cincinnati two years ago?

Wow. I hadn't heard about this. WTF?

Yes sir. That's why Hamilton went on the trading block, clubhouse politics and the public story that they were worried about his 'durability'.

The players were inferred to be ones' threatened by Hamilton's growing reputation and stature that season.

Wow, Adam Dunn really is Pat Burrell. Same story, different town. At least Burrell stuck around Philly long enough for some Phils fans to appreciate him for what he is, not what they thought he could be.

One would assume Chris Dickerson was hitting way over his head down the stretch. If so, the fall-off from Dunn's production is going to be staggering. Norris Hopper will have to play some hellacious defense to make up for it.