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Originally Posted by TDog
Beckham had a higher batting average with runners in scoring position. He had a higher batting average than Dunn with two outs and runners in scoring position. Late in close games Beckham had a higher batting average than Dunn. It wasn't a good batting average, unless you compare it to Dunn's, whose batting averages in the above situations weren't even close.. Dunn was more vulnerable to late-inning relievers than Beckham was, although that might be weighted against Dunn in that teams were more likely to bring in specialists whose job was to get him out while teams generally did not change pitchers to focus on Beckham.
At the end of the day, Dunn was a black hole offensively. As a third-place hitter, he hurt the White Sox over the course of 2012. If you are relying on his stats to tell you otherwise, you are misinterpreting them. If hitting home runs is pretty much all you do offensively, 41 over six months, doesn't guarantee you are helping your team. No one has ever had a lower batting average while leading the league in walks. In my lifetime, I have never seen a championship team that played most of the year with a No. 3 hitter hitting .204.
And Adam Dunn led the league in unproductive outs.
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The best way to win games, unless something changed, is to score more runs than the opposition. Dunn scored far more runs and knocked in far more runs.
Beckham's defense is becoming the stuff of legends. He is a vacuum. He is fantastic at turning the double play. He has a very strong arm for a second baseman. He also has very, very limited range. He isn't even the best defender, relative to position, on the team. Rios and Ramirez are far better defenders. Ramirez is a far better defender at a far more important position. Compound that with Beckham being among the very worst hitting second baseman in baseball, and he has little to no value.
I know you don't like Dunn. I don't really like him either. I'd prefer a more versatile hitter. However, to say one of the worst players in baseball is more important is just ludicrous. By any measure besides power, Gordon Beckham is pretty awful.