Here at GOI, we have made a big fuss about J.P Ricciardi's comments last year that Adam Dunn hates to play baseball. I cannot agree with this statement solely based on the fact that Adam Dunn walks so much. If he hated baseball, I bet he would swing away at everything and not give a dman about getting on base to help his team win. He has played less than 152 games in a season only once in his career. Dunn was also one of the most excited guys to make the USA WBC team this past March. So it's hard to make the judgment that he hates baseball for things like taking a lot of strike threes and having horrible pitching staffs.
My argument as to why Garret Anderson hates baseball comes from pure stats and personal emotions I have of him while growing up. ESPN just reminded me that Anderson has the lowest career hit by pitch rate of anyone in major league baseball. In tonight's Sunday Night Game, he was hit for the 7th time in his entire career. That's like a slow week for Carlos Quintin and Craig Biggio. In 8845 career plate appearances, he has only been hit 7 times. One can say that it is pure probability and every large sample size will have outliers, but this is more than just random chance. Anderson is notorious for bailing on pitches from lefties and righties. God forbid anyone find a video of him facing a loogy and you would see his ass be halfway in the dugout as the ball is approaching. Anderson is also allergic to walking with a career 4.7% rate. The combination of never taking one for the team through the walk or HBP, makes him a prime candidate for hating baseball as opposed to the Adam Dunns of the world.
He did have a 10 RBI day once so maybe he doesnt hate baseball that much
I don’t know why J.P Ricciardi's said that Adam Dunn hates to play baseball. Just because someone strikeout a lot doesn’t mean they hate baseball. As you mentioned he is defiantly a team player by taking the walks. Also you mentioned about his attitude from the last World baseball Classis which I will never forget. He was not originally on the team but was called to play because of injuries. He was the most excited player of any to play in the World baseball classics. He seemed to be the only player who actually cared to play on it. Thus I don’t know anyone would think he doesn’t care about baseball and winning.
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