Hey David, where do you think Adam Dunn will end up on the career homeruns list? I know this is extremely hypothetical, but from one writer to another I'd enjoy your opinion.

I think, barring injury, he has a chance to finish pretty high up there. 25 years old and already he has just missed 50 and is on pace for possibly 50 in a season. Here's hoping he has not peaked.

Really good question. The gold standard for early home run hitting is ARod, thanks to his talent and an era that fostered the long ball. Rodriguez turned 25 during the 2000 season. Throught the 2000 season he hit 189 homers.

Dunn is 25 right now (and will be for the rest of this season). He's currently at 150 and will probably get at least 160 by season's end.

So Adam's a tad behind Alex's blistering pace, but not that far behind. The real question is the direction of the game over the next ten years. Offense has come way down since the rock 'em sock 'em days of the late nineties and 2000. If the conditions for home run hitting continue to get more difficult, it will be hard for Dunn to keep up with the pace of past young sluggers.

Barring major injury, I can see Dunn putting up 500 homers. But I just have a feeling that progressively tougher conditions for hitters in the years to come will preclude any real run at Aaron (or ARod or even Bonds, if they get the record).

Just to follow up my previous note on offensive declines, runs per game this year are off 9.9% compared to the peak for offense in 2000.

Home runs per game are down even further: 11.5%.

If significant declines like this continue, I can't see any slugger in his mid-20s mounting a serious charge at the all-time HR record...unless he just happens to be the greatest home run hitter of all time. I like Dunn, but I don't think he's the greatest home run hitter of all time.

Counter to Casey's argument, Dunn plays in a great park for hitting home runs. That somewhat balances the over all decline in power.

The Cincinnati ballpark has a reutation as a hitters' haven, but baseball-reference.com begs to differ. It rated the park as neutral in 2003 (a 100 index) and actually a pretty bad hitter's park in 2004 (a 92 index).

ESPN seens to rate the park as good for home run hitters. But their park factors page screws up on my browser, so I can't be sure exactly what the numbers are.

At any rate, I would be surprised if Dunn's home park is in Cincinnati after next year. The team seems to be trying to peddle him, and might well have moved him before the trade deadline if they hadn't asked for so much in return. Dunn's relationship with the team looks strained at best, so I think he's gone when he gets free agency after 2006.

But I think any park effects - unless Dunn goes to Colorado - will be drowned out by general conditions in the game. If home runs per game decline another 10% or so over the next five years, and another 10% over the five years after that, the ballpark won't make much difference. Dunn will stand no chance for the all-time HR record unless he's the greatest HR hitter ever, which he isn't.

Just to show how the general conditions of the game can affect HR records, consider the three guys with the most homers ever: Aaron, Ruth and Bonds.

Ruth's career as a hitter spanned 1919-35. During that era the average season produced 0.85 homers per game. For Aaron's 1954-76 career the average season saw 1.62 HR per game. And for Bonds' 1986-2004 career, the seasons averaged 1.95 HR per game.

This isn't to denigrate Aaron and Bonds, who are obviously two of the greatest hitters ever. (We'll leave aside questions of chemistry - and not team chemistry.)

It just shows that Ruth's record was probably going to be broken by *somebody* sooner or later, simply becuase conditions for home run hitting had become so much more favorable. If the conditions worsen in years to come, it will have a very dramatic effect on what young home run hitters are able to accomplish.

Though I'm not one to completely trust in comparables, it's always fun to look at them. Looking at his top ten comps on both Baseball Reference and Baseball Prospectus, and you get the following lists (an asterisk means a player appears on both sites as comps:

500+ HR:
Reggie Jackson

400+ HR:
Fred McGriff
Jose Canseco
Jim Thome

300+ HR:
*Boog Powell
Darryl Strawberry

200+ HR:
Tim Salmon
Tom Brunansky
John Mayberry
Jeff Burroughs
Scott Rolen
Pete Incaviglia
*Troy Glaus
Don Mincher

100+ HR:
Tony Conigliaro
Pat Burrell
Ben Grieve

0-100 HR:
Carlos Pena

There are some pretty eminent names on that list, and Dunn has already outhomered the most dubious names on that list (Grieve, Pena). The other thing to remember about Dunn is that his similarity index is pretty low. I wonder if that is due to his sheer body mass. Not too many players as large as him have played the game with such success. Looking at that list and Dunn's age, he seems to be a shoe-in for at least 300 homers. His health will determine whether he can get to 400 and 500. I'd imagine he'd need to stay in the game until he was at least 40, which might be tough to do, given that many of those comps did not exactly have graceful declines.

Dunn moves alot better than most big men doesn't he? I don't mean in the outfield, but he use to be pretty good at stealing bases, and he is just as big as he was then. that should help him stick around a little longer than some big men. not to mention he is solid muscle...he's a beast.

I'd go a little further and call 400 almost a lock. Dunn will only need about 240 after this year to get to 400. That's 20 homers for a dozen seasons, or up to when Dunn is 37. Unless conditions in the game change drastically, and barring serious injury, that looks like a pretty safe bet. Dunn has hit over 20 in every complete season.

500 is iffier but quite doable. That means almost thirty homers a season over those dozen years. But it wouldn't amaze me. He'll be well over 30 for the last couple seasons.

600, 700? I dunno. We'll have to wait for more of a track record.

Believe it or not, Tom Paciorek actually offered a good insight last night on Extra Innings. He said Dunn will have to stop wrapping the bat so much as he ages, and start taking a more direct route to the ball in his swing. That might well turn out to be true, and could help determine how many homers Adam eventually gets.

I view Dunn as an interesting litmus test as to the kind of baseball fan you are. Statheads love him because they recognize the production--the walks, the home run power, his batting average on balls hit in play. Mainstream fans recognize the power, but get caught up in his high strike out rates, and take him down a peg as a result. The difference between the two is staggering: this discussion has Dunn in the same class as Hall of Famers, recognizing him as one of the truly unique hitters in the history of baseball. Baseball Tonight and ESPN lump him in with Dave Kingman and Jay Buhner as guys who hit a lot of home runs, but will never be great because of the K's. Guys like Adam Dunn deserve more props than they get from the mainstream press--we're talking about one of the five or six best outfielders in the NL this year, and one who has a shot at getting pretty far up the home run leaderboard when it's all said and done.

Long-term production tends to win in the end...Reggie Jackson was such a k-machine, but is regarded (rightfully so) as one of the premier power-hitters in the game's history. If Dunn can stay both healthy and productive, he could find himself in a similar situation. He's got to get on a winning team...it seems that somehow k-prone hitters are more villified when they play for losers. It's weird...more "mainstream" pundits will declare that if only the guy who struck out so much would put the "ball in play", "play small-ball", "do the little things", "not try to pad his stats", that somehow the team would win more. When the same guy is on a winner, there isn't anything close to the same scrutiny.

Obviously you want to cut down on strikeouts no matter what.

But if he strikes out 195 times a season, but still has a .384 on base % and .900+ OPS, then who cares???

You're absolutely right Dave. if you read the Cincy press and listen to ESPN you would think the Reds have nothing positive going for them. But if you look at the Reds offense you realize they've scored the most runs in the NL. Dunn is one of the two best players on the best offense in the NL.

IF most of his Ks come with MOB, THEN, the media has a good reason to complain cuz he not batting leadoff, he batting in the 4 or 5 hole

Dunn has put up a better OBP with runners on base than with the bases emprty. For 2002-04 it was 32 points better: .416 vs. .384. For 2005 it's a whopping sixty points better: .450 vs. 390.

This year Dunn has a ridiculous 1.103 OPS with runners on. Not that his .903 OPS with the bases empty is so bad, either.

During the game last night, the TBS announcers made an interesting point. A majority of his strikeouts (don't recall the exact number) have come on called strikes, and apparently, the Reds coaches are talking to him about trying to be more aggressive after he gets two strikes. Since he has a good BABIP, they think this will both help his average and cut down on strikeouts. He did not show this aggressiveness last night, taking a 3-2 ball for a walk, and a 1-2 or 2-2 strike for a K (which he clearly thought was outside). However, it might be interesting to see if he starts working on that approach.