But I’ve been pleasantly surprised with his production…and much happier with him at first than I ever imagined…and when he started hitting opposite field singles I was completely sold…

But he is clearly a defensive liability…as the numbers suggest…plus he had an obvious influence on the pitches Zimmerman saw this year…

I do not think he has much room to improve

I will summarize 20 years of baseball research for you: Runs saved are actually more important than runs scored to a teams ability to win a ball game. It is possible to lose when you score 20 runs (it has been done… look it up), but no one has ever lost a game in which they gave up zero runs. Theoretically, it only takes 82 runs in a season to be a winning baseball team (if your team has 82 1-0 wins). So entire books have been written on this subject, but the key to winning is slightly more related to stopping runs than scoring them. Run differential is the most used stat for predicting wins but its one problem lies in the fact that many if not most runs scored by team are extra runs they did not need to score to win (even losing teams score many extra runs per year). But nearly all runs saved usually are needed to win (think about this and it will make sense). As a result, great defensive teams will out win great hitting teams with the same differential in runs. A case in point, Seattle was the lowest run scoring team in all of baseball last year and still won more games than they lost (85-77) despite merely good pitching. they were -52 runs in differential. It was one of the top defenses in history that won them many of the games.

If an at bat results in anything other than a walk, strikeout, or home run, then the defense matters more in the result than the pitcher. Pitchers have control over whether or not a pitch is hit downwards for a ground ball or upwards as a fly ball, but not much more than that once it is put in play (after no Walk or K). The defenders and hitter determine nearly all of the outcome from there at roughly a 50/50 split.

Think of it this way, if Tim Lincecum was pitching against major league rs with a bunch of 3rd graders playing defense behind him, you could spot his team 8 runs and they would still likely lose. Barring a 20 strike out no walk performance, they likely lose. Simply because the third graders simply can’t run down balls fast enough or throw the distances necessary with enough zip and accuracy to get guys out.

Lannan strikes out the fewest players in baseball per 9 innings of any starting pitcher. He succeeds through making his opponents hit one ground ball after another. having the worst glove man in baseball (a guy 13 runs per season worse at saving runs than David Ortiz was in his worst ever season) at first base Lannan alone will give up about 9-12 runs per season extra than he would if he had an average defender at first (roughly half run per game as compared to Ishakawa of the giants playing first). The entire team in 2009 gave up around 46 runs per season more thanks to Dunn doing anything other than hitting (compared to an average guy getting the exact same playing time) and almost 65 runs more than having a gold glove quality guys play the same innings. He is the only player in baseball anywhere near this bad.

Now Dunn was tied for the 17th best offensive player in baseball in 2009. Slightly better than Jeter, Howard, and Helton, tied with Lind, but slightly worse than Sandoval, Bay, and Utley. He was 35.5 runs better than the average first basemen at creating runs over the entire season. He was 36.3 runs worse than the average first basemen at saving them. Making him on average a below average first basemen overall in 2009. An average major league player is worth 2 Wins Above Replacement over an entire season. Dunn was worth 1.2 WAR in 2009.

SO, yes, Dunn’s glove damages his offense enough to make him a below average all round player despite being an ungodly hitter. The numbers do not lie!

Data found here:

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=319&position=OF

This is a nationally recognized baseball stat site

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/22/huffpost-game-changers-wh_n_322710.html?slidenumber=3#slide_image

Manny is a below average fielder in LF with a UZR/150 of -7.5 runs in 2009 and -2.5 runs in 2008. I would call him a bad defender. But he is way better than Dunn. Dunn’s LF UZR/150 in 2009 -38.2 runs and in 2008 -20.0 runs. That is why! Note: those are runs not plays. It can take many plays to equal a run.

The reason why you think Manny is similar to Dunn is because great teams complain about having to play minus defenders of any minus and consider them a liability. Manny was the worst defender to play lf in boston in the last 40 some odd years, but was far from the worst defender at that position in the same time period. The same goes for LA. The dodgers unusually employ very good defenders in the outfield so compared to the guys your used to seeing play in LA, Manny is real bad. But, for baseball overall he is just bad.

I really like him as a person and as a hitter. If our team had a brain we would trade him to a team that could DH him everyday. Everybody wins in that scenario (as long as we get reasonable return in the trade), but I do not think we will.