Very insightful article from Lonnie Wheeler in this morning’s Post.
The headline is “At this point, Dunn deal doesn’t add up.” I began reading the piece, assuming that Wheeler was going to say that signing Adam Dunn to a long-term deal would be a bad idea.
I was wrong:
If they don’t care about a player’s capacity for staying in the lineup day after day.
If they don’t care about how it all looks.
To trade Dunn would be to cash in whatever good faith remains in the organization; to sell out the few fans whose extraordinary patience has kept them coming to the park.
To trade Dunn would be to perpetuate a rebuilding process that never gets beyond the subfloor.
To trade Casey would be hard. To trade Pena would be hard.
To trade Dunn would be regrettable.
That’s exactly right, Mr. Wheeler. I am as devoted a Reds fan as there is in the world, but if Adam Dunn were traded, I don’t know if I could accept it.
But if you trade Dunn in the midst of a youth movement – and there have been rumbles to that effect – how do you explain it to the paying customers? Short of Albert Pujols, who in the game is a more productive hitter at his age?
No one; Dunn is the best young Reds hitter in thirty years. And I don’t think O’Brien could explain it to us. It would be a monumental, colossal, PR nightmare, and a huge mistake, at least as far as Redleg Nation is concerned.
Kudos to Lonnie Wheeler for this article. I’m surprised to have read it in a Cincinnati paper.
One last thing. Take a look at this passage, part of a discussion of whether the Reds should trade Casey or Dunn:
The Reds can afford both of them, but will probably lead us to believe that they can’t. Of the two, Dunn – six years Casey’s junior – is more likely to fetch the kind of pitcher the Reds can no longer do without. Nobody else in O’Brien’s portfolio offers the exchange value of his left fielder.
I want to ask one question: if Dunn is considered so valuable by other teams, why don’t the Reds value him? Why don’t the Reds bat him third or fourth, if he’s such a good player that he’s the team’s most valuable commodity?
Would any other team bat their best player seventh? Ever? The answer, of course, is no, but I’d like to see that addressed in the media.
Why doesn’t someone ask that question of Dan O’Brien or Jerry Narron? I’m waiting….
Don’t you think its Dunn’s fat attitude, like Kearns? Being fat and out of shape, and basically a one tool player. Dude could be a stud, but he is soft. That’s why they are tempted to talk trade.
Dunn, fat? I think he is in pretty good physical condition.