Setting a New Standard of Bad: "Dunn Bad"

Almost!

For those of you casually watching baseball this summer, or only following front runners like the Phillies, Yankees, and/or Red Sox, you may be missing the astoundingly awful performance of Adam Dunn.

As of this writing, Dunn is hitting .161 with 146 strikeouts in 341 at bats through 117 games. The White Sox signed him as a free agent over the winter to be their Designated Hitter...pause for effect. Somehow, his team is still in the Central Division pennant race.

Adam Dunn's 2011 campaign is setting a new standard of ineptness. (Detroit Tiger fans may painfully recall Rob Deer's '91 campaign when he hit .179, but managed to hit 25 HR's.) Dunn is on track to register 16 dingers and should rack up over 200 strikeouts. This is some serious not hitting for someone designated to hit.

Dunn's 2011 season may become so significantly awful that his name becomes one of those commonly used sports term that we all immediately understand:

• "He's pulling a 'Koufax'." Won't play ball on Saturday because of his Jewish faith
• "That was a 'Reggie-like' performance." Turned in a memorable post-season effort
• "He's got the 'Steve Blass' syndrome." A pitcher who cannot find the strike zone
• "He's gone 'Sax' on us."  An infielder who cannot find the first baseman
• "He's 'Dunn.'" A batter who can barely make contact, much less hit

Imagine a couple of coaches hanging around a batting cage a few years from now...

"What happened to Smith? That guy could really stroke it."
"Oh, Smith...yeah, he's 'Dunn.'"
"Sorry to hear that."

Dunn's performance is so impressively and historically woeful, it may transcend sport and become part of our future accepted vernacular....

"You know, that Ryan Reynolds was a pretty good actor, but his recent movie choices 'Dunned' beyond belief."
"I thought that Katy Perry was going to be the biggest thing since Madonna, but she has 'Dunned' her last few albums, hasn't she?"
"Obama really 'Dunned' this economy"

Let's put Adam Dunn's year-to-date statistics into perspective:

Will you still love me tomorrow?

• He trails the next worst hitter in the major leagues, Vernon Wells, by .047 points. For you stat buffs out there, he is 22% worse than the next worst hitter in the majors. Wells ought to buy Dunn a car for taking attention off his .208 performance.
• He will need to hit .351 for the rest of the season in order to reach the "Mendoza Line" of .215. That means he will have to hit at more than double his current average
• In over 20 games, he has struck out 3x or more times; Joe DiMaggio struck out 3x or more in one game once in his career (Source: Chicago AM 1000 Thursday afternoon)
• He is currently hitting .100 points less than what he hit last year. His lifetime average is .245...not exactly Ruthian (another athletic term we understand), but not horrible
• He could go 0-4, 1-4, 1-4, 1-5, and 1-6 over the next five games and raise his average
• He is hitting .038 against left handed pitching (this is not a typo)
• The Sox gave him a contract for $12 million dollars. At his current rate, he will be paid $160,000 per hit

We don't usually see hitters suddenly lose the ability to hit unless they have been beaned, drugged, maimed, or mauled. Most hitters seem to deteriorate slowly, over time. As far as I could tell, Dunn suffered no off-season setback other than that one lunch he missed in January.

Hey...kid, yeah you!
Catch this one.

Dramatic baseball drop offs seem to occur when players forget how to throw; for example, pitchers can no longer find the strike zone and infielders can no longer find the closest first basemen. We watched and shuddered when grounders were hit to guys like the Dodger's Steve Sax and the Yankee's Chuck Knoblauch as they rifled throw after throw in the general vicinity of the first base dugout.

We watched in anguish the anguish of pitchers like Steve Blass, Mark Wohlers, and Rick Ankiel, who went from successful and effective pitchers one season to mysterious wild men the next. In Ankiel's case, his wildness somehow occurred in the middle of a playoff game. And yet, Ankiel was such a good athlete, he resurrected his career as an outfielder. A pretty inspirational story. Blass and Wohlers never made it back.

Dunn was brought in solely as a DH, so one doubts that there is a latent 92 mph fastball lurking within that rather large (dare I say "pudgy?") body of his. If his manager, Ozzie Guillen, continues to  trot him out to not hit, then just sit back, enjoy (assuming you are not a White Sox fan) and and watch history unfold. Stephen Colbert of "The Daily Show" said it best, "I haven't seen someone with that much trouble getting to first base since me."

Stephen Colbert Discusses Adam Dunn