Are Adam Dunn and Jason Giambi Worth a Contract

A comment to a recent post here asked why Adam Dunn wasn't in the free agent discussion found in the post. The same question can be extended to Jason Giambi. Both batted in the .240 to .250 range last year. Both are inadequate fielders, but are they worth a contract offer?

If you casually look at the numbers, slow-footed, glove-deficient players with that kind of batting average and strikeout rate would seem to be obvious choices for the "no way" pile. The casual fan would lump him in the same category as Richie Sexson. Then again, during Sexson's good years, that's not a bad comparison.

Let's compare Adam Dunn to Ichiro Suzuki. We can already concede that Ichiro is a better fielder and baserunner. Would you guess that Ichiro was on base 264 times in 2008 and Adam Dunn only 20 times less at 244. Would you also guess that they both had exactly 265 total bases? Would you also know that despite playing on the Reds for years, Dunn has scored over a hundred runs in three of the last five seasons? And wouldn't you value Dunn's 206 homers in the last five years over all Ichiro's singles?

Heck, Giambi only had 35 less total bases than Ichiro in fifteen less games? There is something tangible in those two big guys consistently clogging up the base paths and putting more pitches on the arms of those apposing them. Day in and day out, Giambi and Dunn may have a strikeout each game, but also a hit and a walk or both and one of those hits will travel a long way. There is value in what Giambi and Adam Dunn do to apposing pitchers day in and day out.

Giambi can be an even better deal with someone after getting away from Yankee Stadium. The Jason Giambi from the Oakland days would hit the ball all over the field. Once with the Yankees, he started pulling everything and "The Shift" was instituted and took away a lot of those line drive base hits he used to get. If he went back to hitting the ball where it was pitched, Giambi would be down right dangerous.

Adam Dunn's real weakness is batting against left handed pitching. He batted only .197 against them in 2008. That's brutal. But if the Fan can get a guy on base 244 times a year and knew he would strike out 160 times the same year, the Fan would take that trade off.