Seth's 50 Centers

As I prepare to attend my fourth Reds game in five days, loyal readers Don and Nancy chimed in with this question:

What are your feelings on the talks of the Reds getting rid of Adam Dunn?

The short answer is, I don’t like it.

The longer, exhausting answer, goes as far as I can to say trade him without actually saying trade him.

This is a guy who can be as thrilling to watch as anyone in the league. When he hits the ball it has every chance of landing, not only in the seats at Great American Ball Park, but across Mehring Way and into the Ohio River! The guy hit a foul ball Sunday that reached the deepest corner of the upper deck.

It was a foul ball, yet there was a roar around the stadium that sounded as if someone else had hit the ball out of the park.

Now to the negative. Dunn strikes out way too much — over 190 times two of the last three seasons — and of late he’s constantly found himself in 0-2 holes, giving him virtually no chance of getting a hit, let alone earning a walk. He has walked over 100 times in a season multiple times, but I don’t know if he’ll be doing that this year.

He somehow has kept his batting average at .250, but it’s hard to imagine how of late.

His defense isn’t as bad as it used to be. He will still misjudge his share of balls, but with a speedy center fielder next to him, he isn’t likely to be lacking in getting to balls.

To sum it up, if you could get really good pitching help, maybe you think about it, but I remember the Reds giving up two pretty decent offensive players in hopes of obtaining relief pitching help last summer. How did that pan out? Not well!

To sum Dunn up, he is basically the lone Red right now who can cause me to roll my eyes (after watching two strikes to open an at bat) before making me jump out of my seat in awe of a tape measure long ball.

Despite the negatives, however, I look at him the same way that I looked at Sean Casey when he was on the team. People panned Casey for not being a power hitter at a traditional power hitting spot in the line up, first base, but at the time the Reds had Ken Griffey Jr., Austin Kearns, Wily Mo Pena and Dunn in the outfield, all power hitters.

My feeling with that was that if all three potential outfielders were going to bring power to the table, then why not have a first sacker who can put the ball in play and drive in 80-100 runs a season?

It’s the same now with Dunn. Even though he doesn’t always hit for good average, or drive in runs other than himself on home runs for that matter, he’s an acceptable player in a line up that gets the job done in other ways.

The Reds have guys who hit for decent, if not great, average (they currently have six guys playing regular roles hitting between .270 and .300) and who drive runs in (seven guys, including Dunn, have 20 or more RBI).

At the end of the day, you have to look at your entire roster when deciding whether you can keep a player who has deficiencies in some areas.

When going well offensively, the Reds have speed (Norris Hopper, Ryan Freel and Brandon Phillips), power (Dunn, Junior, Phillips, Alex Gonzalez and Josh Hamilton all have nine or more homers) and guys who can hit for average (Scott Hatteberg and Jeff Conine are platooning at first base and have done a good job of getting on base despite not displaying awesome power).

Throw in Edwin Encarnacion, who despite a terrible start to the season is hitting .274 with 27 RBI, and the Reds’ lineup has a little bit of everything needed to get the job done offensively…

…except hitting at the catcher position.

I say keep Dunn. As much as those at ESPN will say the Reds are dead in the water, and I agree they’re certainly not doing more than treading it at this point, they’re only one game out in the win column of passing two teams (Houston and Pittsburgh) and just three games behind second-place Chicago in the win column.

I’m not saying they’re going to win the division, or the Wild Card, but a stretch of series where the Reds take two of three, like they did against Cleveland last weekend, and the Reds could be gaining ground toward the .500 mark.

If that’s the case, more fans will be coming out on a regular basis, and they’ll want to see towering long balls at that.