For Gods sakes let's give Adam Dunn a long-term home

There’s lots of talk about the Washington Nationals not wanting to re-sign Adam Dunn solely because of his defense:

“the team continues to view Dunn’s defense at first base as a sticking point, and is reluctant to give him the four-year deal he prefers because of it.” Goessling quotes an opposing team’s scout as saying that “the only person in the front office who wants to re-sign him is the owner.”

The same scout went on to make the absolutely absurd claim that Dunn’s defense at first base “costs them half a run a game” and “is worse than it looks on paper.” In other words, there’s a person paid to watch and evaluate professional baseball players who thinks Adam Dunn has cost the Nationals about 80 runs with his defense this season. To put that in some context, the Nationals have allowed a grand total of 724 runs this season.

We have debated this before–but why can’t this guy find a home? Why does he continue to be one of the most prolific sluggers of the era, and teams just discredit this work year after year?

Dunn was an outfielder as early as last year; and honestly there are a lot worse first baseman out there.

If you read the post above, it comes from one scout who isn’t looking at Adam Dunn objectively. As someone who saw him play a ton of games he never appeared to be that nonathletic or buffoonish that he couldn’t play first base. Let’s be honest, there are some complete slobs playing the position in this league.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the off-season. Adam Dunn again enters the free agent market, with an owner in his corner that wants to sign him. It really does feel familiar.