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500 homers has always been a key to the Hall of Fame. Adam Dunn has 459 homers. He's 34. Unless something goes wrong he'll hit his 500th homer in early 2016. Does a .237 career hitter who strikes out a lot, a real lot and plays almost exclusively at DH make the HOF? Or do the WAR numbers come out and he has no chance? His cumulative WAR is 16.6 over fourteen seasons. 

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Originally Posted by RJM:

500 homers has always been a key to the Hall of Fame. Adam Dunn has 459 homers. He's 34. Unless something goes wrong he'll hit his 500th homer in early 2016. Does a .237 career hitter who strikes out a lot, a real lot and plays almost exclusively at DH make the HOF? Or do the WAR numbers come out and he has no chance? His cumulative WAR is 16.6 over fourteen seasons. 

I don't think it's a given that he's going to get the 800-900 PAs it's probably going to take him to get to 500, or that if he does that it'll happen by 2016.

 

Rice is essentially the modern day bar for HOF hitters (and that's probably setting the bar low), and Dunn is in no way in Rice's league as a hitter. If Dunn gets to 500 HR he might hang on the ballot for a while, but he's not going to get voted in. If he doesn't make it to 500, he's probably one and done.

Nope. Assuming four more seasons, he probably won't even get 2500 hits--the HR is the only standout stat, and 500 HR isn't what it used to be (there are 11 batters who have reached 500 in the past 15 years, compared with 15 total in history to that point.) It'd be hard to justify him and not Gary Sheffield, for example. And if Jim Thome ends up not getting in (and if that happens, it'll most likely be due to continued scrutiny of hitters in the PED era,) you can bet that Dunn won't.

 

And I would disagree that Rice sets the bar. At this point, there's a strong feeling that Rice shouldn't have been elected--so a batter that is comparable to Rice, especially explicitly comparable, is at a disadvantage.

Last edited by Matt13

500 is an arbitrary number that was determined to be the "bar" by someone a long time ago. There are a handful of 500+ HR hitters that are eligible for induction not in the Hall of Fame, including the man who hit more HR's than anyone else in MLB history. So, I would highly advise not putting much any stock in what these HOF experts voters think.

 

With that being said, Adam Dunn's career 22.9 fWAR is two full wins less than Barry Bonds in 2001-2002…just two seasons (Dunn is in his 14th season). His career 123 wRC+ ties him for 308th all-time. Given his lack of defensive acumen, I'd say Adam Dunn is a fine player that provides value to a team (especially with his elite power and well above average on-base abilities), but is far away from a Hall of Famer.

 

 

Originally Posted by J H:

500 is an arbitrary number that was determined to be the "bar" by someone a long time ago. There are a handful of 500+ HR hitters that are eligible for induction not in the Hall of Fame, including the man who hit more HR's than anyone else in MLB history. So, I would highly advise not putting much any stock in what these HOF experts voters think.

 

With that being said, Adam Dunn's career 22.9 fWAR is two full wins less than Barry Bonds in 2001-2002…just two seasons (Dunn is in his 14th season). His career 123 wRC+ ties him for 308th all-time. Given his lack of defensive acumen, I'd say Adam Dunn is a fine player that provides value to a team (especially with his elite power and well above average on-base abilities), but is far away from a Hall of Famer.

 

 

But does he have "Teh Fear"?

Originally Posted by vikingboy:

If he averages 20 hrs for the next 4 yrs, which might be a conservative amount, he will end up with 540-550 hrs and I think he gets in.

If he's going to average 20 HR/season (which is starting to look like a fairly realistic expectation), he's probably not going to get to play 4 more years (though anything's possible if Raul Ibanez still has a job). 

 

Originally Posted by ClevelandDad:

Adam Dunn is a modern version of Dave Kingman.  Now way on the HOF.  A one tool player does not deserve to get in.

To be fair, he can also draw walks, which is probably the only reason he's still in the league at this point.

Originally Posted by vikingboy:

I see the point about Dunn,actually Paul Konerko has better stats that Dunn, minus the hrs. Dunn- 1600 hit, 1150 rbi's, 237 ba, 458 hrs

      Konerko - 2335 hits, 1411 rbi's, 280 ba, 439 hrs

 

Dunn can always visit the Hall of Fame like the rest of us. 

 

vikingboy brought up Konerko.  He was the "slugger-type-guy" that  popped into my head (in this era) as a long shot.  Earlier in his career he was one of the best players.  I don't have time to look up his sabermetrics at the moment.  Got to run.

Adam Dunn is to our era what Darrell Evans or Dave Kingman were in their era. 

 

We're in a homer happy era.  Other than that, I think the precedent is there.

 

Also there is the asterisk.  He played a lot of his career in the steroid era.  As far as I know, no one has ever implicated him.  But there's talk that a lot more names may come out soon.  In that event, he would be in line way, way behind guys like McGwire, Sosa and Palmeiro.

Originally Posted by Midlo Dad:

Adam Dunn is to our era what Darrell Evans or Dave Kingman were in their era. 

 

We're in a homer happy era.  Other than that, I think the precedent is there.

 

Also there is the asterisk.  He played a lot of his career in the steroid era.  As far as I know, no one has ever implicated him.  But there's talk that a lot more names may come out soon.  In that event, he would be in line way, way behind guys like McGwire, Sosa and Palmeiro.

Darrell Evans should be in the Hof, he compiled 62 war in his career and is one of the top 10 or so 3B since 1947. Darrell Evans and Adam Dunn offensively, however, are both relatively the same (120 vs 123), which if you sustain it over a long enough career and can at least play average D, you're a HoFer. Dave Kingman was worse offensively than both of them and the same sort of D as Dunn, which to those of you scoring at home is somewhere between indifferent and vomit inducing.

These experts morons in charge of voting that created the "asterisk" should have kept Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Mike Schmidt, and many others out of the HOF also, since they seem to fancy themselves as the moral police. Greenies are performance enhancers.

 

There's a double standard of subjective morality involved in the HOF that completely baffles me. The museum for the best baseball players ever doesn't allow some of the best baseball players ever to be enshrined because a bunch of writers have decided who they like and don't like. It's a mockery.

 

Last edited by J H
Originally Posted by OldSkool2:
Originally Posted by zombywoof:

Dave Kingman isn't a hoffer. If Dunn is a hoffer, then they may as well just make the hall of fame open membership to everyone after they retire five years.

They already did that when they elected Jim Rice.

Yea. Exactly. If he wasn't good enough the first time, why then the 15th and last shot then get shifted over to that dopey veterans committee after being told 15 years in a row you didn't cut it where another group can rehash old retreads and finally vote them in after getting tired of seeing them on the list year after year and having the same supporters digging thru rubble to come up with justifying these retread every year.. Never understood this mentality other than without voting somebody in every year, you'd lose the loot generated by the ceremony.

Last edited by zombywoof

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