Adam Dunn: Team Leader

Tom Boswell must be trying to spike Marty Brennaman’s blood pressure:

Throughout his eight years with the Reds, five of them 40-homer seasons, Dunn was typecast as the easy-going lug who didn’t care enough — about the team, his defense, his conditioning. That image was part of the reason the Nats got him when the free agent market dried up and his phone didn’t ring. Why, $20 million was enough to get a 275-pound slugger for two years. The Nats probably could have signed him for a third year, too, but shied away. Dunn says that image was never him. Whatever. It’s not him now . . . Right now, what attitude the Nats have, or even aspire to, comes from Dunn.

Detractors will probably say that anyone could be a team leader on a losing team, but Dunn really does seem to have his head on his shoulders since coming to Washington. He’s smarter and seems more committed than most people have historically given him credit for. Given how bad the Nats are no one will probably point to his signing as one of the better pickups of the offseason, but he truly was. One shudders to think how bad the Nats would be without him right now.


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Jonathon
14 years ago

Adam Dunn a team leader, ARod hitting clutch homeruns, the Rangers with pitching – what’s the world coming to?

Matt A.
14 years ago

I wonder what Dunn would of done to make the Braves outfield less pathetic.

Speaking of which, the Failcoeur shirts are on sale.

http://www.talkingchop.com/2009/5/23/884805/failcoeur-t-shirt-on-sale-contest

Aaron Moreno
14 years ago

Yeah, they say anyone can be a leader on a losing team, but it’s not like Dunn ever really played for a winner. It’s just a different perception now of Dunn as the lone bright spot in an atrocity against baseball.

Anthony
14 years ago

As a Met fan I was hoping Omar would sign Dunn, and figured we needed at least one of Hudson/Dunn since he didn’t get Lowe.  If Dunn was playing a corner OF for the Mets they’d be in first by a few games.

Rick
14 years ago

Dunn hasn’t changed since he signed with Washington.  He just doesn’t have Marty Brenneman and company tearing him apart for being somebody other than Pete Rose.

Dunn was always a leader in the Reds clubhouse.