When the Chicago White Sox signed Adam Dunn for $56 M this past off-season, I think they probably had their eyes on adding a ~40 home run season to the middle of their line-up. The early returns have been less than encouraging – a .198/.314/.298 batting line and just 2 longballs. Even allowing for some drop off due to (1) the move from the AL to the NL in general, (2) the move to DH (something Dunn resisted throughout his career, and which does carry a penalty for offense – it’s harder to hit after sitting on the bench all game than when playing the field), and (3) his early season appendectomy, which kept him out of a few games (but wasn’t too serious), Dunn has come out of the gates slowly.
While never a high contact hitter, Dunn’s strike-out rate so far is well above his career numbers. He’s K’ing over 34% of the times he steps up to the plate in 2011, compared to less than 27% of the time for his career and less than 31% of the time in 2010 (his career high up to this point). I don’t know if recovery from the surgery has something to do with it, but Dunn is just swinging a missing a whole lot. Then lump a tiny .226 batting average on balls in play on top of that (.295 career), and even on the relatively infrequent occasions in which he’s actually putting the ball in play, it finding leather. That’s led the below Mendoza-line batting average.
Dunn is still walking quite a bit, which has kept his on-base percentage from being atrocious, but that’s not going to be enough with quite a bit of power – an unexpected deficiency for a slugger moving to one of baseball’s friendlier home run ballparks. And yet Dunn has gone deep only twice, despite hitting the ball in the air quite a lot. They’re just not going over the fence, and not all that many balls have even been particularly close.
Now it’s still early, and Dunn is perfectly capable of going on a home run binge and getting back on pace for 35-40 for the season. Chicago better hope that happens sooner rather than later though, because a DH that isn’t doing any H’ing is a real drag on a team who’s offense is scuffling overall anyway.
