3 comments Paul Daugherty Seems to Dislike the Sport He is Paid to Cover; Also Still Hates Adam Dunn

Some sportswriters seem to hate the sports they cover. Just off the top of my head I can think of guys like Jay Mariotti, Mike Lupica, and Phil Mushnick as three guys who just seem to hate sports, but enjoy the paycheck it provides to them. I think I can add Paul Daugherty to that list when it comes to covering baseball. It's not that he doesn't have a right to complain about the length of baseball games, it is that he treats the playoff games with such disdain as if the length of a playoff game is just one more reason to hate the sport of baseball. Daugherty makes the astute observation that baseball games are too long. Why hasn't anyone else complained about this before? This is totally new information to anyone who likes baseball! Also, as we will later learn, Paul Daugherty still hates Adam Dunn.

The Kansas City Royals aren't a baseball team. They're an unintentional rain delay.

But seriously, folks...

They haven't played an October baseball game in less than three hours, 38 minutes. Four of their six playoff games have consumed at least four hours.

And the games have mostly been exciting too! This only makes it worse though. Don't bore Paul Daugherty with exciting baseball games, just get them over with so he can get back to watching his "Criminal Minds" re-runs. 

Of course, until this year, the Royals hadn't played an October game of any sort since 1985. Maybe they're just taking it all in. 

Or maybe they had played four extra inning games when Paul Daugherty wrote this column. Pretty much any time a sporting event goes to extra time then that sporting event will last longer than it normally does. The Panthers-Bengals game that ended in a tie started at 1pm EST and ended around 5:00pm EST. That's a pretty long football game.

The Baltimore Orioles ought to be dog-tired. Maybe even as tired as baseball fans who've watched them play four hours, 37 minutes and four hours, 17 minutes in their last two games. 

Baseball games can be long, especially ones that goes into extra innings, and especially playoff games. Feel free to not watch them. 

Watching a manager think. What fun.  

Maybe you should go find another job that doesn't involve watching sports and watching a manager think. I can tell you the only thing worse than watching a manager think is hearing a sportswriter who makes his money from watching a manager think bitch about watching a manager think.  

In New York, Major League Baseball has appointed a committee to study why baseball games now take longer than trips to the moon.

Hey Paul, it's 2014. Trips to the moon don't happen anymore, so you may want to find a better comparison to how long baseball games last. Perhaps they last longer than my patience for dealing with your crotchety complaining about the time of baseball games. That's not a high threshold to clear though.

Committee members will spend lots of time walking around the room, adjusting their neckties, testing the wax buildup on the conference room floor, uttering practice words, shaking off others' practice words and staring blankly into space.

Of course, members will also have to take a few pitches, too. 

The irony of Paul Daugherty killing time and space in a column that has one basic premise which can be summed up in a paragraph, while complaining about how baseball players kill time while at-bat is delicious to me.

Look at it this way: Baseball is a game to enjoy while you're enjoying something else. A nap, for instance, or the detailed assemblage of a nuclear device.

How many times can Daugherty restate the same point? I guess we'll see. If you don't enjoy the sport of baseball then don't watch it. Few things are worse than hearing a sportswriter who hates the sports he covers bitch about covering that sport.

Theoretically, you could begin watching a postseason tilt at 8, take a break at 9 to hitch-hike across China, get a new lung, floss, carve a pumpkin and read a little Tolstoy and still be back to watch the last couple innings. 

Yes, the playoff baseball games are long, unlike the premise this column is built upon. I will flip channels while watching baseball games if I am at home, but mostly because I hate commercials. A better writer would offer several solutions to speed up the game he hates so much, as opposed to just bitching and moaning about how long the games are. A lesser writer, like a writer that Paul Daugherty seems to be, just complains and suggests an improvement that has already happened. What are suggestions to pick up the pace of the game? If you are bitching and not creating solutions then what's your point? 

What if you're not a fan?

Then I don't watch the whole game. The same thing I do if I am watching any sport and I'm not a fan of either participant in that game. 

What if your rooting interest trends more in the general direction of getting some sleep? 

Then I go the fuck to sleep and don't watch the game. See, there is nothing that says I have to watch an entire baseball game or watch any entire sporting event. It's fun to have control over my life and do what I want. 

I like baseball. I like it a lot. The older I get, the more I like it.

It's pretty clear you don't like baseball. Please don't lie. 

You actively watch the Bengals and Xavier or UC. The Reds? 

Actually, I find baseball to be more of a diversion than other sports because it moves at a slower pace. I can cook dinner, flip channels, do something else while watching it and don't feel like I constantly have to have my brain turned on when watching the game. So while I'm actually watching a baseball game, it's a diversion for me from the other stuff I have to do. Other sports I have to focus on entirely for a long period of time, so it doesn't feel as much like a diversion at times. I recognize I am weird in that way. 

There are nights, lots of them, between April and October when nothing else will do. 

That doesn't mean I'm not doing something else. 

Then do something else. That's the beauty of baseball. You can do something else while watching the game. It certainly sounds like you don't like the sport though. 

If you were a Bengals fan Sunday, can you imagine doing anything else between 1 and 5, when the game finally ended? That was four hours, too, just like a playoff baseball game. Those four hours were different than baseball's four hours.

If the Braves were in the playoffs, I would watch every minute of every playoff game. That's how it works when you love a sport and a team. I can't imagine doing anything different during those hours, unless the game conflicted with another sport, and then a decision has to be made. 

Baseball worries about losing young fans. It should. Kids whose attention spans are dictated by Twitter and Madden 2015 aren't hanging out by the flat screen for four hours for anything that doesn't come with a controller or a means to get on Facebook.

No, but young fans can get on Facebook while watching a baseball game. There's no doubt the game moves slow and improvements to pace of play should be made. Since Paul Daugherty gets paid to watch sports, it seems like a better column idea than simply bitching about pace of play is providing multiple suggestions to improve pace of play. 

And to think: Scoring is down in baseball. Fewer reasons to be excited, and more time not to be. Great job, baseball. 

Baseball writers when talking about PED users: "Steroids are ruining the integrity of the game! These steroid users have no place in baseball and shouldn't be earning money to play baseball. Get them out of the game forever! They are making a mockery of home run and scoring records!" 

Baseball writers when talking about how scoring is down: "Scoring is down! Baseball is losing the kids because no players are hitting home runs! Baseball needs to find a way to help teams score more runs and make the game more exciting like it used to be back in the Steroid Era!" 

More isn't better, unless chocolate is involved. More is just more.

Very deep. This should be inscribed on Paul Daughtery's tombstone when he dies of boredom from watching a baseball game.

Baseball needs to fix this. The logical answer is to shave commercial time, between innings and during the endless pitching changes. That won't happen.

Look, a solution! Not really, but this is about the best Daugherty can do. I think one of the best ways to speed up the pace of play is not give a pitcher warmup tosses when he enters the game, except in cases of injury to a pitcher. The pitcher is warmed up already from being in the bullpen, go out there and throw the baseball. It's a small improvement, but any improvement is an improvement. 

How about expanding the strike zone?

Actually Paul, that has already happened.

Way to make assumptions in lieu of research though. 

Better, how about enforcing it?

"Expand the strike zone, keep the strike zone like it is and just enforce the current strike zone, shrink the strike zone, don't have a strike zone and every pitch should be called a strike." 

Metrics have turned lots of hitters into ball-watching savants. Taking pitches, getting deep into counts, walking.

Obviously the pace of play issue is the fault of stat heads. Who else could be responsible? The same group who is constantly told, "What happens on the field matters, not your statistics! You can't measure what happens on the field!" are naturally responsible for what is happening on the field due to the use of the same metrics that can't measure or affect what happens on the field.

All have conspired to increase the number of pitches thrown. That by itself wouldn't be so bad, if batters and pitchers would stop preening, pondering and checking with their chiropractors between every pitch.

It's a conspiracy among stat heads to further ruin the game of baseball! Stat heads aren't satisfied with ruining the game by using metrics that suck the enjoyment out of the game, now they are brainwashing baseball players into taking a long time during each at-bat. 

Fattening the zone would make for more swings

The strike zone is already being fattened. 

Fewer walks, perhaps. Fewer strikeouts.

Wait, what? How would a more expanded strike zone result in fewer strikeouts? Wouldn't an expanded strike zone result in more strikeouts since more pitches will be called strikes? I know, I'm not as smart as Paul Daugherty, plus I actually like baseball, so perhaps I am completely incorrect. 

Fewer pitches. Fewer pitchers. Faster games. What we all want. Right?

I don't know if a large strike zone would result in fewer pitchers. But again, data shows (yes, data, so I understand that Daugherty may think this information is part of the conspiracy to ruin baseball) that the strike zone is expanding. 

Meantime, mainline that Monster, ballfan. Rev up the Rockstar. The playoffs are on. See you in four hours.

It's okay to just admit you don't like one of the sports you cover. Playoff games take forever and the games should be sped up, but there's no sense in complaining about it if you are only going to suggest an "improvement" that is already happening and hasn't sped games up.

It's well-known that Paul Daugherty isn't a fan of Adam Dunn. So of course he couldn't allow Dunn to retire without getting a few more shots at him in.

ADAM DUNN IS A GREAT GUY AND WAS A TERRIFIC PLAYER. . . I wasn't going to hold forth on this topic. Guy's retired, hasn't played here in years. Let it go, Doc.

But this is something that just can't be "let go." Something has to be said about Adam Dunn and how he seems like a great guy, but is really ruining baseball.

Then I read this latest God-ding up of the B.D., in Sports Illustrated, in reference to Dunn's prodigious ability to K:

And Daugherty KNEW something had to be done. No one can write anything positive about Adam Dunn without the real truth being stated. Someone had to be brave enough to take shots at Dunn after he has retired.

"Each time he swung and missed on strike three was agonizing for him, and he did everything he could to drag himself out there the next at-bat, hoping for better results.''

Oh, please.

Yeah, Adam Dunn didn't care. How dare anyone suggest otherwise!

Man played 14 years. Struck out at least 159 times in 12 of 'em. Never changed his approach. Never shortened his stroke. Never tried. He was just up there, agonizing and hoping.

His approach worked pretty well for him. He hit home runs, he got on-base, and struck out a lot. Dunn was paid to hit home runs and get on-base, so shortening his stroke to avoid strikeouts didn't seem like the best of ideas.

Had a natural ability to hit a baseball 400 feet. Never worked at doing anything else. Too busy reading car magazines. 

What else was Dunn supposed to work at doing? Was he supposed to learn to woodworking or some other skill? The things Dunn was bad at, defense and having speed aren't really things that he could have worked too hard at improving. He's not an agile guy, so he isn't going to magically become a faster runner and better outfielder, and I'm sure he worked at becoming a better fielder...just not to Paul Daugherty's satisfaction.

 The numbers crowd has tried to make the argument that there's nothing egregious about striking out. These are some of the same people who get all tingly upon hearing the phrase "on-base percentage.'' 

Probably because the way baseball teams can score runs is by getting men on-base. A double down the line can't score a run unless there is a runner on-base. So it's nice to have players who get on-base at a fairly high clip.

No sale. Put the ball in play, give yourself and your team a chance. 

There is something to be said for putting the ball in play as well, but when a player like Adam Dunn is at-bat and he is someone with poor speed then putting the ball in play can also result in more outs because he doesn't have the speed to leg-out infield singles. I love players who put the ball in play, but a guy like Adam Dunn doesn't need to just get the ball in play so he can run to first base. He is relied on to drive in runs, get on-base, and hit home runs.

I'm not sure why everyone else was so enamored with Dunn. He was self deprecating, sure. Rip yourself first, so no one else feels the need. But he never wanted to be anything more than what he was. I like athletes who get the most from their ability. Or more. 

Who is to say that Adam Dunn didn't get the most from his ability? Changing his approach at the plate could easily have cut down on strikeouts, but also cut down on home runs and walks. Is playing the game of baseball the way Paul Daugherty wants Dunn to play the game "getting the most of his ability" or simply reducing one strength of Dunn's game to improve a weakness in Dunn's game?

Have a good one, BD. I'm sure you will. You're free from the BS game that made you very, very rich.

I feel so much better now.

You should feel better. Finally, Adam Dunn is being treated like the real asshole he is and no positive words spoken about Dunn's career are written without the proper retort.

In this article, which was written three hours prior to Daugherty writing the above article about baseball's pace of play issues, Daugherty basically wrote the entire previous column on how playoff games are too slow in a single paragraph:

MORE ISNT BETTER. MORE IS JUST MORE. The cool thing about the MLB postseason, I guess, is that you can start watching a game at 8, take a break at 9 to hitch-hike cross-country, design a nuclear device, floss, carve a pumpkin and read a little Tolstoy and still be back to watch the last couple innings.

He uses the same jokes in this column he will later use in his column written three hours later. To be fair, it seems using the same jokes is Paul "getting the most out of his ability" to write.

6 comments Monday Notes

I hope everyone who cares about the sport enjoyed the first weekend of college football. I am writing this post on the Thursday before the games started so I have no idea what happened this past weekend. I have a couple things I wanted to share here on Monday to start the day off right (where "right" means "me giving my opinion," its very Bill Simmons of me to equate me giving my opinion with other people's joy, I realize that. Speaking of Bill Simmons...).

-Bill Simmons posted a two part Vegas weekend play-by-play. I am sure there is a certain crowd in the world that really cares what the hell happened to him in Vegas. These same people probably also write into his mail bag and care what type of inside jokes Bill and his really super cool friends have. I personally don't, so it's not worth covering for me at all. Of course I will still give my comments on it after reading Part 1.

Contrary to the approximately 80 tags I have with the name "Bill Simmons," I actually have nothing against the guy. Many of the jerks, like me, who can be critical of him feel like his writing has gone from fairly original and clever in the beginning to self referential and really dragged down by his constant need to be the person who is the most right and funny in every situation. These Vegas "diaries," first off don't deal with sports, which I see as a problem coming from a guy who writes for ESPN and calls himself The Sports Guy. The second problem is it just feels incredibly self indulgent. It's like he has gotten confused and thinks because people care about his writing, they care about his life, his friends, what his friends say, what his wife says, and how much fun he and his friends have. It may just be me but it just feels very self indulgent to write a column about how much fun you had in Vegas with your friends and go into minute, little details on everything that happened. It's gotten to the point his Twitter updates are more interesting than his columns.

As he stated in his opening paragraph, he is almost 40, which is still young, but way too old to be transcribing drunken details of a Vegas weekend. We get it. There were self referential jokes, somebody got really drunk and did something, the gambling was fun, they made up a new "Theory," used pop culture references to refer to something that happened, there was an incident they will all remember for the rest of their lives, and they all realized being married sucks. I think that probably sums it up. I don't need to read it again really. I am sure Part 2 is much of the same.

Did I forget to mention the entire weekend was just an attempt to do a feeble remake of an Entourage episode or the movie "Swingers"? Because if I did, I should have mentioned that. Also, I am sure the debauchery was epic and Vegas is super awesome.

I have no problem when my friends or someone else I know personally share tales from the weekend or a trip to Vegas, but really hearing about a sports columnists really awesome Vegas weekend isn't that much fun to me. There is something about the worldwide sharing of inside jokes between friends and relating all the "cool" things that happened which feels very egotistical and self involved to me. If it was something sports related, maybe I could be a little bit nicer about it. This is supposedly Bill's last Vegas vacation with "the boys"...I certainly hope so.

-Rick Reilly went ahead and thought he would steal Bill Simmons' column idea for reasons on why you can no longer cheer for your favorite team. Bill's column was better in my mind.

First Rick Reilly copies his own previous columns (and copyrights the name of his weekly 800 word disgrace of a column) and now he is partially stealing column ideas from Bill Simmons. Every day is a new low for Rick.

The worst part is that not 1 hour after I wrote this, Deadspin picked up on it. So now I am writing this on Thursday and posting it Monday, so it seems like I am just copying the copying of what Deadspin readers noticed. I promise I noticed and wrote this independently of anything on Deadspin (End of pathetic plea..............now).

The worst part for me was his last reason to abandon your team:

10. Your team is the Cubs. Seriously. Go already.

The Cubs have officially been annointed by many in the media as the new "Red Sox-like cursed/unlucky team" and it drives me crazy. They are not unlucky nor are they loveable losers. They are a large market team that has mismanaged it's payroll and signed players they have no business signing. It's not that the fans are all losers, I am sure they are not, but the whole "we are loveable losers but just have bad luck" schtick the fans put out to the world gets old fast.

The Cubs are the Red Sox and the Yankees if they made (more) bad personnel decisions. They aren't "a little team that could, if only they had a little luck," they are a large market team that has made some bad signings and really hasn't developed too many players in their farm system, which hasn't helped their present situation. Reilly and the rest of the media can create goats that have cursed the team or use Bartman as an example of a curse that exists but it's all bullcrap to give the Cubs ineffectiveness a story line that fits in a column. When in doubt for a reason behind a team's struggles, blame a curse for it. I am surprised Dan Shaughnessy is not involved with this. Doesn't he need to try and sell more books?

-Bill Plaschke again whines about the Dodgers not trading for a star pitcher. The best part is that he doesn't make sense in doing it.

Agreed. This is why the Dodgers should not have taken a chance. This is why Colletti should have offered more to the Cleveland Indians for Lee.

It is a failed trade that could haunt them through October, a failure of the entire Dodgers organization to either offer or cultivate the right prospects.

They are cursed and haunted! Alert the mainstream media there is a new curse out there! Call Dan Shaugne...ok, I have used that joke already today.

Yes, the Dodgers should have cultivated prospects 2-3 years ago for the express purpose of trading for Cliff Lee in 2009. I can see a directive coming from the Dodger's ownership written in memo form, "Please begin to cultivate prospects for the express purpose of trading for good pitchers in three years."

Yes, I know Bill Plaschke means they should develop some sort of a farm system, not expressly for the purpose of trading for Cliff Lee, but the mere fact the Dodgers don't have the prospects to get Cliff Lee in a trade should, in theory, cause Plaschke to give up on the idea or at least cause him to stop writing about it one month after the trade deadline. Not so much I guess...

Or it could be that this belongs on Frank McCourt's desk. Remember that last summer, in an effort to save money, the Dodgers traded some of their best prospects for players -- Manny Ramirez, Casey Blake, Greg Maddux -- instead of just buying them.

Maybe I am confused but how could the Dodgers have bought Manny Ramirez, Casey Blake or Greg Maddux? Am I supposed to really believe the Red Sox or Pirates would have accepted money in lieu of prospects for Manny? Same thing for the Indians, I don't think they would have accepted money instead of baseball players. Maybe I am crazy but I think what Plaschke is suggesting is impossible. Maybe I am misunderstanding him here, but I don't think so. He wanted to give money in return for these three players, instead of giving up prospects.

Wasn't it just a paragraph ago Plaschke wanted the Dodgers to cultivate prospects to trade for Cliff Lee, but now he is complaining the Dodgers traded their top prospects for the stretch run last year...which got them in the NL Championship Series by the way. You can't have it both ways...and I am pretty sure you can't just pay for players because teams are going to want other players in return. Major League Baseball isn't Wal-Mart, it's a bartering system.

The bottom line is that, in acquiring Lee, the Phillies traded from a system that had four of Baseball America's midseason top 50 prospects.

The Dodgers had zero players on that list.

I understand the Dodgers haven't gotten any good prospects.......so how were they supposed to trade for Cliff Lee or another great starting pitcher again? I really doubt the Indians would have accepted cash. Really, Plaschke is not fighting the fight to get better pitchers on the Dodgers team but he is fighting to get a better farm system so he can trade players from that farm system and then complain about the farm system not having good enough players.

Perhaps he should quit complaining the Dodgers didn't trade for a great pitcher when it is clear they did not have the prospects to complete such a trade. It's fine to want the Dodgers to upgrade their pitching, but you can't complain when you know they don't have the prospects to upgrade the pitching staff.

-Does anyone realize what a great offensive year Adam Dunn is having?

Yeah, he is not a great fielder but still his offensive numbers are great. Even his batting average is respectable this year. I never understood when people would constantly talk about how often he strikes out, which is true, but he walks an incredible amount as well. I just wanted to highlight how well Adam Dunn was hitting this year. His batting average is even respectable. I have to say if he played for a bigger team that was winning he may be getting MVP votes...maybe that is going overboard.

2 comments Adam Dunn=Sponge

As Jane Austin once famously wrote;

"it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. And Adam Dunn is terrible."

Very true Jane, very true. No lesser literary critic than Jeff Passan concurs.

Swinging for fences

Adam Dunn has glaring weaknesses but the D'backs got stronger after dealing for him

glaring. Blinding. Fucking deafening weaknesses. But they did get stronger after dealing for him. I guess I might be convinced since the most similar player through seven seasons is this dude.

No player in baseball history has been quite like Adam Dunn...

BEHOLD, the power of the internet truly is imposing. I, like you, Jeff, thought that no other hitter in the one hundred and sixty nine year history of baseball every hit a lot of home runs, struck out a lot and walked plenty. But my eyes have been opened. Opened by the power of this scary new technology called the internet and baseballreference.com. And the moment they were opened I had the misfortune of being blinded by a passing Adam Dunn weakness. What are the odds?

the epitome of a hit-or-miss guy, so it is fitting that he’s on the move for the first time in his career, heading to the Arizona Diamondbacks, in the sort of deal that clicks or bombs but rarely sees an in between.

ugh, dude, you are so reaching here. First of all, what did the D'backs give away? A bunch of prospects, I dunno, say they are awesome prospects, which I guess you're assuming for the dire consequences you envision. OK, you know what is the youngest team full of prospects in the one hundred and sixty nine year history of baseball? The Arizona Diamondbacks. Man, it is so fun to say things are the only one of their kind in like two centuries. So they are really young and don't really want to be any younger, in fact, young, inexperienced hitting is a big part of the problem this year. So they need to get older, more experienced, and more level headed.

Furthermore, you know what the most likely outcome here is? That the Diamondbacks fall somewhere "in-between". I still think they will win the World Series (I've always been contrarian), but they probably won't, statistically, but they probably will make the playoffs. Isn't that the definition of in-between? It's literally the most likely outcome.

Simple though it may sound, if the Diamondbacks do hold their tenuous 1½-game lead over Los Angeles in the National League West, the trade is a success.

I'm not sure why that sounds simple. It sounds pretty accurate to me. You should have more self confidence Jeff! I don't need you giving me a little disclaimer before every opinion. It's not like I'm dissecting everything you say and making fun of you. Then taking those beliefs and putting them on a website for people to see, humiliating you. That would make me a bit of a dick now wouldn't it?

Because without Dunn, the Diamondbacks – buoyed by Brandon Webb and Dan Haren playing Batman and Robin – would be hard-pressed to survive a season laden with trip wires.

I beg to differ with Dodgers superfan#1 right here, but I'm sure you'll offer some analysis and evidence for your opinion.

The latest, a season-ending wrist injury to second baseman Orlando Hudson, made the deal – which just beat the 48-hour deadline after the Diamondbacks claimed Dunn off waivers from Cincinnati – all the more imperative. Oh, there were other bummers: losing Eric Byrnes for the season and lamenting the selling of Carlos Quentin, whose 32 home runs tie Dunn for the major-league lead, and getting substandard production from some of their great young talents, Justin Upton and Chris Young chief among them.

I don't see why Justin Upton and Chris Young's poor performance so far would be a trip wire for the future. If anything, statistically it suggests they are likely to regress to the mean and be better over the last month and a half. Unless you're suggesting their both terrible, which is a pretty big call for a #1 pick in 2005 and a dude who hit 32HR in his first season in the majors. But you are Jeff Passan, who listens to no fan and laughs in the face of things of things that make grown men cower.

I'll give you Orlando Hudson, I guess. Eric Byrnes however is hitting .209/.272/.369. He's not very good even when he's at his best. Carlos Quentin playing for the White Sox has nothing to do with the games the D'backs have already played (they didn't meet in interleague) let alone a "trip wire" for what is coming up. You could say you've "struck out" with this passage Jeff.

Sorry.

Hudson’s absence shook the Diamondbacks, and shook them into action.

shook them deep in their soul, rattling their ribcage with a tremour that could only be measured by an existential angstometer.

Dunn is a mess of exaggerations – size, at 6-foot-6 and 275 pounds, and swing, a long, looping strike of force, and mannerisms, with his outsized sense of humor. But he has undeniable raw natural power, which will play at Chase Field just fine.

the same power in PNC Park? Ho-ho-ho, an absolute recipe for disaster my niave friend. It would appear you don't know a lot about running a baseball team. That cockamammy nonsense may play down in Chase Field, but it doesn't fool us around here.

With eight more homers this season, Dunn will become the eighth player in major league history to hit 40 or more in five consecutive years. Babe Ruth owns the record with seven. Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa did it six times. Ralph Kiner, Duke Snider, Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. round out the list.

this trade does sound like a risk.

Griffey, a teammate of Dunn’s with the Reds for the last eight seasons, can’t understand why the 28-year-old isn’t more of a commodity. Maybe it’s Dunn’s batting average – .233 this year, .247 for his career. Or the nonchalance with which he’s perceived to conduct himself – due, perhaps, as much to the long-running idea that he regrets leaving a scholarship to play quarterback at Texas as the fact that, yes, Dunn does carry himself in the outfield like a sloth.

or perhaps, just perhaps, too many people involved in baseball teams are totally full of shit! Yes! Eureka!

Whatever the case, Dunn’s reputation has been the object of whispers that in June went public when Toronto general manager J.P. Ricciardi ripped him on a radio station as a player who “doesn’t really like baseball all that much.”

The two had never spoken.

“For someone to think just because he likes throwing a football around, he isn’t passionate about baseball – it’s just so far from the truth,” Griffey said last week. “If you don’t care about baseball, you don’t hit 40 home runs every year. You just don’t.”

Dunn’s retort – “I don’t know the clown,” he began – was pointed. Still, the questions raised by Ricciardi about his commitment could have driven down his trade value.

I submit a challenge to our readers. Who can come up with the funniest word to describe the stupidity required to have flippant comments from an uninformed source on someones personality, who doesn't even play, not only on that team, but any team, convince you to not want one of the best players in the Major Leagues? You'd have to be inbred wouldn't you? What about Jeff, who has been swayed by this argument second hand? I don't know if there's any more hope in this column dearest Jeffrey.

Because, in the end, Cincinnati GM Walt Jocketty got Dallas Buck, a one-time hotshot prospect with a history of arm troubles, and a couple of players to be named later.

this Dunn sounds like a risk (part 2).

For eight years, Dunn languished in Cincinnati, where the postseason meant a derriere imprint on the couch. He’ll play right field and hit fourth in Colorado on Tuesday, the Diamondbacks going headlong into the Dunn experience.

better put your sunglasses on Phoenix.

Part of it is the laughable fielding and the absurd strikeout numbers, which makes Arizona’s lineup – already with serial whiffers Young, Upton and Mark Reynolds – more porous than a sponge.

there is this thing, it's called a colander . It's entire purpose is to have lots of holes. Porosity is a measure of the void spaces in a material. A sponge's purpose is to absorb liquids. Literally to stop liquids from passing through. If a colander had an opposite, it would be a sponge. This metaphor, in other words, could not logically be more wrong.

And the other part...

the non-sponge part.

consists of home runs and walks, the two special qualities that separate Dunn from his predecessors and contemporaries. Think five straight years of 40 homers is impressive? Dunn is 20 walks from hitting 100 for the fifth straight year, and only Bonds has done 40-100 five in a row. Never Babe Ruth. Never Ted Williams. No one but Bonds and, soon, Dunn.

risk!

The Diamondbacks are fine with the skeptics trashing Dunn. They can chuckle that 36.8 percent of his hits this year are home runs...

wh-wha-why is this bad? Is there some metric done on what constitutes the optimal percentage of hits that are home runs? Wouldn't it be 100%, and closer is better? Do you mean he doesn't have a lot of hits? Nearly as retarded a way of judging a player.

or call him Dave Kingman with a good eye or train cameras on his outfield antics in preparation for the blooper reel.

Arizona is in a pennant race, and it needed to do this. As its newest player can attest, it’s better to swing for a home run than stand there with the bat on your shoulder.

well to be fair, he does that a bit too, you forgot to mention, he's third in walks. Anyway,

RISK!!!