Playing a Slow Left Field for Team Fatal Flaw, Adam Dunn

The dichotomous maker-of-enemies; the hot-button issue, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the taking of the Rhineland. Adam Dunn is a divider. The two schools of baseball thought and cultural processing take their sides, one against the other, cracking off sniper fire from respective foxholes. The old school vs. the new school.

The old school thinks that the flaw is half empty. Adam Dunn strikes out just a whole whole bunch. Seems like every damn time to the old school (ranking him fifth in the NL this year with 160-some-odd Ks). And when he's not striking out, he's taking good sound hittable pitches, lusting passively after the base on balls like a pauper waiting for his ship to come in. "Jee-suz! Swing the bat, meat!" The old school grabs his fedora and crumples it in his hooked fists, the vein on his forehead swelling like the Old Man, the Mississippi, in flood season.

Whatever new school contingent of execs in Cincinatti must've grown weary from fending off the old schoolers, as they shipped out probably the fifth most productive hitter in the league for some prospects who I'm sure are just fine. Might've been something about a contract year, too, but in their weary hearts the new schoolers were likely glad to be rid of the man who came to dominate every scouting meeting, drink at the bar and sauna session in Cincinatti. (BTW, the folks at FJM are much better at poking fun at the old school than I).

And what, you might ask, did Adam Dunn do to deserve this? What is his fatal flaw, and why is he on this team at all? Perception is the flaw. Dunn is a divider, tearing war rooms apart, rending a tear in the delicate fabric of administration. It's better to be rid of the man--productive as he may be--than to let the acrid debate continue.

Some team somewhere will be happy with the Texan. The board room will buzz with anticipation, knowing that they're bucking the straps of the old school for the emancipation of sabermetric success.