A .163/.290/.289 statline with lackluster defense and baserunning is really quite bad, but does it qualify for the worst season in the modern age of baseball?
According to fangraphs, not quite but still attainable. In the modern era of baseball, that distinct honor belongs to the 2002 campaign of Neifi Perez. In 2002, Neifi Perez posted a statline of .236/.260/.303, mix that in with sub par defense and you have yourselves the recipe for an epically bad season (a -2.9 WAR to be specific). Throughout Neifi Perez's career he was often synonymous awful and according to fangraphs he may actually owe the MLB baseball for having to grit their teeth through his horrible play and plaguing millions of television sets for years.
However, this does not diminish what Dunn has been able to attain thus far. It takes a combination of such a high amount of poor defense, poor offense, and poor baserunning to reach the horribleness of Adam Dunn's 2011 season. Dunn is only a 0.4 WAR difference away from tying Perez's campaign and with a month of baseball still left he definitely has a shot of reaching and surpassing him. Not to mention Adam Dunn is on pace to accomplish a couple of other offensive feats:
-The lowest batting average in a qualifying season
-The highest K% rate in a season (albeit breaking a one-year old record currently held by Mark Reynolds)
Perhaps the most intriguing part of this story is the impact of Paul Konerko's injury on Adam Dunn's season. With the injury to Konerko, Dunn may be placed into the field more which should only hurt his value further. In fact, if Dunn had been playing the field this entire season we may have already surpassed Mr. Perez. Dunn currently has a UZR/150 of -37.1, but since he has only played 260 innings in the field his UZR stands at -6.2. Albeit, this is a very small sample size but (with the exception of last year) is it not far off from the typical representation of Dunn's defense.
Another intriguing development is where this leaves Dunn for a career perspective. Dunn finished last season at the age of 31 with 354 career home runs. It would only take 4 typical Adam Dunn seasons to reach the magical number of 500, placing him in elite power company and he would probably have the opportunity to climb quite high on the all-time list. However, even with this accomplishment, poor defense and a power orientation at the plate has not placed him in elite player company. Dunn has only had one All-Star season, one 5+ WAR campaign, and has never finished higher than 21st in the MVP voting. In the eyes of many statheads, Dunn was still unworthy of HOF mention and lacked the name recognition to have any legitimate shot at Cooperstown. However, with voter's obsession for milestones one would be hard-pressed to believe we wouldn't garner at least some consideration.
Now many peripherals point to Dunn rebounding, at least somewhat. But here is to hoping Dunn can continue to torrid horribleness and perserve his spot in the Hall of Shame. I mean whats the point in being bad if you can't strive for being the worst?
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