Big Dunnkey

Jerry Reinsdorf loosened the purse strings and Kenny Williams worked his magic yesterday, as the White Sox agreed to a four-year, $56 million deal with Adam Dunn (subject to a physical).  Dunn who can hit home runs with the best of them, averaging over 40 bombs for the last eight seasons, will remind you of Jim Thome: left-handed power hitter who is best suited to be a DH and is a great clubhouse presence and solid citizen off the field. 

The fans and his teammates here in DC love him, but don't plan on him advancing Ozzie's obsession with small ball.  Dunn walks a ton -- seven seasons with triple-digit base on ball totals -- and it seems like he's walking when he's running.  Slow doesn't begin to describe him, so those walks won't turn into runs unless a couple of guys behind him get hits.  Oh, yeah.  He strikes out a lot too.  He's led the league in Ks three times and fell one whiff short of reaching 200 last year. 

Baseball-Reference.com says that the player that Dunn is most similar to at his age (31) from a batting standpoint is Jose Canseco.  During the seasons that Jose was 31 to 34, he hit 28, 23, 46, and 34 round-trippers and drove in 82, 74, 107, and 95 runs.  I expect better from Adam since Canseco had already started his slide several years before reaching 31. 

As a Sox fan, I'm happy with the signing since I favor tailoring your team to take advantage of your ball park and I like Dunn's persona.  As someone who goes to a lot of Nats games, I'm disappointed he won't be in Washington anymore.

Now, we need Jerry and Kenny to come up with a similar kind of deal for Paul Konerko, though four years seems a bit too long given his age.  They haven't given up on re-signing him, but the timing seems to be a problem.  Paulie's in no hurry, but Kenny is because if he can't ink  Cap'n Crunch to a contract, he wants to sign someone soon before all the likely replacements are gobbled up by other teams.

In other personnel moves, A.J. Pierzynski re-upped with the Sox, which is a good thing since Tyler Flowers is not ready to be a major league catcher -- and may never be.  With apologies to Lou Grant from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show, I like A.J.'s spunk and he's the best catcher out there that we could still get.

Finally, the Good Guys exercised their option on Alexei Ramirez.  Given that he's still cheap at $2.75 million -- I should be so cheap -- won the Silver Slugger, and should have won the Gold Glove instead of Derek Cheater, this was a no-brainer.

Let's see what happens with Paulie and the bullpen.  The rest is in place.  Go Sox!