Dec 3rd 2008 5:00PM by Pat Lackey (author feed)
When the arbitration decisions were announced the other day, one of the real head-scratchers was Arizona’s choice not to offer Adam Dunn arbitration. The D’Backs gave up three players for less than 200 at-bats of Dunn. Why wouldn’t they want the two draft picks he’d pull in as a Type A free agent? Surely some team would be willing to give up a pick for a slugger like Dunn.

As it stands right now, Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Braves, Mariners, Nationals, and maybe even Yankees are all interested in Dunn while the Dodgers and Angels are keeping him in mind should they fail to sign Manny Ramirez and Mark Teixeira, respectively. That’s plenty of interest and I doubt the Yankees, Angels, Dodgers, or Nationals would be all that worried about losing a draft pick to sign Dunn.

You can say what you like about Dunn, but whoever signs him will know exactly what they’re getting. He’s hit exactly 40 home runs a year each of the last four seasons with an OPS+ of between 129 and 141 in three of those years (and 114 in the other). In the past five years, his OBP has been between .386 and .388 four times. Why the Diamondbacks were afraid that player was going to accept arbitration … yeah, I have no idea.