How do you improve the postseason chances of a team that’s 18th in slugging percentage and and 21st on on base percentage? Answer: You trade for Adam Dunn.

That’s exactly what the Arizona Diamondbacks did today, acquiring the lefty slugger for prospect Dallas Buck and two players to be named later.

It’s no secret that Arizona was in dire need of a bat. With Orlando Hudson now out for the remainder of the season, first baseman/left fielder Connor Jackson was the only big offensive threat in the entire lineup. With the left fielder Dunn joining the team, the Diamondbacks can keep Jackson at first for the rest of the season. Moreover, this allows manager Bob Melvin to take Chad Tracy out of the everyday lineup and use him as a lefty bat off the bench or to spell Jackson or third baseman Mark Reynolds on occasion. The D-Backs will also be getting RFer Justin Upton back from the DL any day now, and should also help give the club a nice offensive boost.

Prior to the trading deadline, SI’s Jon Heyman was reporting that Arizona had at the time offered Tracy to Cinci for Dunn but was unsurprisingly rejected. A couple of weeks and a Manny-to-Dodgers trade later, the Diamondbacks agreed to give up 23-year old Dallas Buck, a righty pitcher with High-A Visalia. Buck was drafted in the third round back in 2006, but underwent Tommy John in 2007 and missed the rest of the season plus the bulk of this one as well. He began his 2008 campaign in Low-A South Bend and had made one start in Visalia thus far. As such, I love this move from Arizona’s perspective. In the deep, prospect-laden Arizona organization, Buck was never considered one of the top prospects. And coming off a major surgery, Buck had missed a great deal of development time for a pitcher his age.

On the Cincinatti side, this one’s a bit tough for me to evaluate. One could argue that they needed to get something for Dunn, who is an upcoming free-agent. However, a hitter of his stature would have probably netted a nice compensation pick or two once he signed elsewhere. So the key becomes who those two “players to be named later” are. And without knowing what kind of offers the Reds had been getting for Dunn prior to the deadline (as I’ve written here before, I’ve never quite understood why there was so little interest in him from contending teams), I don’t know what they missed out on.

But I do think that the race between Arizona and LA just got a little bit more interesting.

Well, this is shaping up to be one of the quieter trade deadlines in recent memory.  Nevertheless, as I have done every year on this blog, I’ll be here all afternoon to give you hasty reactions to each trade as they happen.  Newest trades will be on top

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Boston dumps Manny Ramirez, cash on the Dodgers for Pirates OF Jason Bay.  Pirates receive Andy LaRoche, Bryan Morris, Craig Hansen, and Brandon Moss

Sigh. Yet more confirmation of Ned Colletti’s severe case of big-name-itis and Frank McCourt’s mad quest to acquire as many members of the 2004 Boston Red Sox as he possibly can.  The Dodgers are weakening their defense terribly.  Manny is the worst defensive left fielder in all of baseball by virtually every measure there is.  And it is not even all that close.  The short left field in Fenway was just about the only park in the majors where he was even serviceble. Now the Dodgers have huge defensive holes at third, short, second, and left.  Not to mention the huge logjam in the Dodgers outfield being made even worse.  If the Dodgers play anything other than Manny-Kemp-Ethier most of the time, this deal doesn’t really even help anything.  But you know that Torre is going to be sorely tempted to run Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre out there as much as he possibly can.

As for Boston, this is an insanely good deal.  It is ridiculous that they got JASON BAY, who is locked up through 2009 for just Craig Hansen and Brandon Moss (and Manny).  Those are two guys they didn’t even want!

As for the Pirates, this has to be a bit of a disappointment.  LaRoche has a chance to be good, but this is not anywhere near the return you would have expected for a year and a half of Jason Bay.

Reds ship Griffey Jr to the White Sox for P Nick Masset and 2B Danny Richar

This is a pretty baffling trade for the White Sox, one which smacks of big-name-itis and favorite player obsession.  Griffey can still hit a bit, and of course both 1B Paul Konerko and CF Nick Swisher are struggling at the plate this season, so playing Griffey in center can allow Ozzie Guillen to bench one or the other with Swisher either sliding over to 1B or riding the pine, but Griffey is not *that* much of an improvement over Swisher, and playing him in center is just asking for another groin pull or hamstring tear.  Not a bad deal for the Reds though, as they get out from under Griffey’s salary and buyout to an extent (splitting them with the Sox), and they also get Masset, who is a mediocre but usable swingman, and Richar, who is only 25 and was once heralded as the future 2B of the ChiSox, and may yet become at least a handy piece of the bench or something.

Mariners trade Arthur Rhodes to the Marlins for minor league P Gaby Hernandez

Meh. The Marlins already had a pretty decent bullpen (4th in the league in bullpen ERA), so this is just adding a tiny extra piece. Plus, Arthur Rhodes is old and has only pitched 22 innings this year, so he’s likely to wear down and pitch not quite as well down the stretch. But it does let them get the ball out of Taylor Tankersley’s hands and let him try to rebuild his shattered psyche down at AAA. Gaby Hernandez is a B-grade prospect, but that is not a bad return for a Mariners squad that is always in need of pitching and which was going nowhere this year.

There are very few players in baseball that polarize the supporters of traditional and sabermetric statistics than the Cincinatti Reds’ Adam Dunn. Those who favor traditional stats look at his career .247 batting average and the tons of strikeouts he accumulates. The sabermetric crowd loves his on-base and slugging percentages and are more willing to overlook his deficiencies. If you’ve read UmpBump regularly, then you probably know that I’m pretty firmly on the sabermetric side. And no, I was not a math geek growing up. Hated it, in fact.

Anyhow, it should come as no surprise when I say that Adam Dunn just might be the most underrated hitter in baseball today and I would love to have the guy play for my New York Mets this year. But if Joel Sherman of the New York Post is correct (and when is the Post ever wrong?), that’s simply a pipe dream. Not because the Mets don’t have the pieces to get the deal done - which is probably true - but, even more disconcertingly, because they’re evaluating him using these traditional stats that do not do players like Dunn much justice:

The Mets did consider Cincinnati’s Adam Dunn, but his poor defense, historical problems in clutch situations and high strikeout rates have eliminated interest.

His defense does leave something to be desired. Regardless of whether he’s evaluated using traditional (2007 fielding percentage of .976 in left field) or sabermetric (.826 Revised Zone Rating and 31 out-of-zone plays made in 2007) numbers, Adam Dunn is a below-average left fielder. However, according to the Sherman article as well as MLBTradeRumors.com, the Mets are strongly considering Raul Ibanez of the Mariners instead. While I like the idea of bringing Ibanez into the fold, I do wonder why the question of defense doesn’t come up in this instance. His fielding percentage was pretty much identical to Dunn’s (.975) last season and his zone rating (percentage of balls that were hit into a typical left fielder’s fielding zone and was fielded cleanly) was worse at .813. Ibanez did field more out-of-zone balls (41), but put it all together and you have two fielders with similar levels of ability. If defense is an issue with Dunn, why not so for Ibanez?

Next up on the list of undue criticisms is the idea that Adam Dunn has “historical problems in clutch situations”. This is a tricky area because the word “clutch” means different things to different people and often varies in meaning depending upon the argument one’s trying to make. Statements like “he’s not clutch because he doesn’t hit with runners in scoring position”, “he’s not clutch because he doesn’t hit in the later innings in close games”, or “he’s not clutch because he didn’t hit in April/May/June/July/August/September/October when his team needed him the most” get bandied about at one’s convenience.

Read the rest of this entry »

If I wrote a post a week ago about what the Reds really need, the answer would have been to sack Corey Patterson already (he of the .200 average and .240 OPS), and bring up Jay Bruce to play center already. Or at the very least, stop having Patterson bat leadoff (fer chrissakes!).

But seeing how those problems have been (finally) solved, what the Reds really need now is a fifth starter.

Any kind of fifth starter would do, actually.

The Reds actually have a pretty awesome rotation from 1-4, with ace Aaron Harang, Rookie sensation Edinson Volquez, an improving Bronson Arroyo, and high upside flamethrower Johnny Cueto. Their lineup is also pretty stacked, now that Bruce has finally been called up (as long as someone will tell Dusty Baker to stop doing stupid things like telling Adam Dunn to bunt).

But what has really been dragging the Reds down is a guaranteed loss every fifth day. Current fifth starter Matt Belisle has been thoroughly execrable, allowing 47 hits in 29 2/3 innings while posting a 1.79 WHIP and a 7.28 ERA. Original fifth starter Josh Fogg was amazingly even worse, putting up a 2.09 WHIP and a 13.09 ERA in his 3 starts.

Even the most replacement-y of replacement pitchers would be a drastic improvement at this point, and you certainly have to think that AAA stalwart Homer Bailey or Double-A ace Ben Jukich (5-2, 2.34 ERA at Chattanoga), could do better.

- What They Need Index -

Free coffee and baseball: This is a match made in heaven, from Sarah’s point of view. Two notes: 1. Jose Canseco is worried that he’ll get poisoned via free coffee. 2. Jonathan Papelbon is advertising free coffee (with purchase of either a flatbread sandwich or a pizza) at Dunkin’ Donuts, available the day after the Red Sox win. Sounds a bit complicated to me—and it’s cheap of DD to exclude their own employees. Not to mention that Paps looks like a cheeseball in this photo. Why didn’t they just go with a real post-game shot?

Speed: the Blue Jays are going to be swiping more bags this season. And speaking of speed, I enjoyed watching the A’s relievers throw over to first with Jason Varitek standing on the bag. Yes, let’s make sure the 35-year old catcher doesn’t steal.

Fans: It just goes to show you that the Dodgers really do have a special relationship with their fans, as LA hurler Brad Penny warmed up with a lucky fan yesterday. Across town, Angels owner Arte Moreno bought souvenirs for several fans. And it seems that Baltimore’s long-suffering faithful are finally abandoning their ballclub. Just don’t get mad when the Sox come to town in May and bring their hordes of free-spending fans with them, transforming Camden Yards into Fenway South. The O’s need the revenue.

No-hitters: Yesterday, ESPN.com carried a teaser for the Chicago-Detroit game saying the Dontrelle Willis was throwing a no-no through five innings. To me, that’s just false advertising. Sure, it’s technically accurate to say that D-Train ended up one-hitting the White Sox, but it would perhaps be more descriptive to say that Willis went five innings, while walking seven and striking out none. It was the least dominant no-no bid I’ve ever watched. An outing more worthy of ESPN’s hype would have been Jake Peavy’s two-hit complete game or Manny Parra’s legit seven-strikeout no-hit bid, carried through five innings.

Reds Rookies: On the heels of Johnny Cueto’s stunning debut Thursday, another Reds rookie pitcher impresses today. Edinson Volquez has pitched five innings so far, with seven K’s and one earned run. He’s scattered three hits and two walks.

Sleep: The Red Sox really do need it. Their odyssey from Florida to Japan to California to Toronto is starting to tell, and it’s most readily apparent on defense. Boston has already committed two errors halfway through today’s game. They had two errors yesterday, too, and have racked up a number of sloppy near-errors over the past few games. They have a day off tomorrow and open Fenway Park on Tuesday.