KolbSaves wrote:Dunn's going to be huge the rest of the season, mark my words. I'd expect a .280 batting average the rest of the way, too. His line drive rate is up from the last two years and his batting average on balls in play is way way down. That means he's hitting the ball better than ever and getting more unlucky than ever. I'm not saying he'll be Albert Pujols, but I expect him to be a top 30 hitter for the rest of the season in a mixed league.
I think top 30 HITTER for the rest of the season goes without saying.
One thing people have not mentioned is his significant improvement against lefties so far. If that trend continues, he can elevate himself further.
I still think he will be just outside of top 50 overall by the end of the season. I need to see him keep up a higher BA for standard leagues to be convinced that he is in elite status.
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Laean wrote:to that one poster who said .250 is high for dunn, why? hasn't he hit higher than that before? i mean i don't know if he will, nor do i care (since i play in ops instead of avg league), but why can't he?
I wasn't the poster that said that but I'll field it.
Why not just use the babip that's on the page instead of calculating it yourself? It says .250 so I'm not sure where the discrepency lies.
The formula is to determine whether a player's BABIP is based on luck or it's where it should be. I use three metrics to determine what a player's BABIP should be in a luck neutral environment when I'm examining a player:
1) The formula from that page based off of 3-yr averages in the ld%, fb% and k/ab numbers.
2) The player's actual career BABIP
3) The player's actual 3-yr average BABIP
I'll look at those numbers and use some common sense to get to a good middle ground. With Dunn the formula spit out about .275, his career number was around .283 or something and his 3-year average was around .290 (these are off the top of my head...might be a bit off on those). Using common sense I gave a lot of weight to the career number since the 3-yr average was heavily influenced by one fluky season (2004's .321 mark) and settled on a .285 number to expect. That means that this year's mark of .250 is lower than it should be and especially since his ld% is up indicates bad luck. His average should rebound but we're talking about a rebound back in the direction of .250.
That's the thing with Dunn...he has great luck and puts up a .321 BABIP and his average 'spikes' by 16 points to .266. He has terrible luck and puts up a .250 BABIP and his average 'slumps' by 17 points to .233. If anything, Dunn's less likely to slump or streak than other players when it comes to batting average. He just doesn't put enough balls in play to have luck affect him that much.
Laean wrote:to that one poster who said .250 is high for dunn, why? hasn't he hit higher than that before? i mean i don't know if he will, nor do i care (since i play in ops instead of avg league), but why can't he?
I wasn't the poster that said that but I'll field it.
Just plugged his numbers from THT's player page into a formula to predict expected BABIP (batting average on balls in play) and came out around .275 or so. His BABIP over the last few years is around .285 or so which is fairly typical for that formula as it tends to undershoot on guys and I question the numbers I get from it but I throw it in there to show his past performance is in the ball park with expectations.
So let's say we expect a .285 BABIP from Dunn. It's a bit generous but reasonable. He strikes out 1/3 of his at bats, the walks are irrelevant here since we're discussing batting average and he homers in about 8.5% of his at bats. That means over 200 at bats we're going to see about 67 k's and 17 home runs. That only leaves 116 balls in play. A .285 BABIP would see 33 of those fall for hits which would give him 50 total hits for a .250 batting average. And the thing is that because he puts so few balls into play he can only get so lucky. In 2004 he had a .321 BABIP - well over the expected .285 - but it only brought his average up to .266. Even at Ichiro levels of BABIP (around .350) Dunn would only get 41 hits in play for 58 total hits in 200 at bats - a batting average of .290 which is great by Dunn standards. But when you consider he has to hit a whopping .350 on balls in play just to hit .290 then you start to realize how futile it is to hope for a high average out of Dunn.
interesting. so when i asked why is .250 avg too much to expect from him, you're agreeing with me that it's not? that's about what you can expect? i mean, a high avg, sure, you can't expect that. but .250 isn't high ....
Laean wrote:interesting. so when i asked why is .250 avg too much to expect from him, you're agreeing with me that it's not? that's about what you can expect? i mean, a high avg, sure, you can't expect that. but .250 isn't high ....
All indicators point to a highly consistant .250 hitter.
KolbSaves wrote:Dunn's going to be huge the rest of the season, mark my words. I'd expect a .280 batting average the rest of the way, too. His line drive rate is up from the last two years and his batting average on balls in play is way way down. That means he's hitting the ball better than ever and getting more unlucky than ever. I'm not saying he'll be Albert Pujols, but I expect him to be a top 30 hitter for the rest of the season in a mixed league.
April of 2005 was the last month he hit over .280
7 months without hitting over .280, and only 1 month out of the last 9
KolbSaves wrote:Dunn's going to be huge the rest of the season, mark my words. I'd expect a .280 batting average the rest of the way, too. His line drive rate is up from the last two years and his batting average on balls in play is way way down. That means he's hitting the ball better than ever and getting more unlucky than ever. I'm not saying he'll be Albert Pujols, but I expect him to be a top 30 hitter for the rest of the season in a mixed league.
April of 2005 was the last month he hit over .280
7 months without hitting over .280, and only 1 month out of the last 9
Yet out of nowhere, he's gonna hit .280?
Out of, he's hitting the ball better than before. Bold prediction, but that's okay.
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by Yoda » Tue Jun 06, 2006 2:42 pm 
