Yes. Yes.

Here’s the thing, though: Your point that, “from a skill perspective, they aren’t really that different” is way off-base. They are two completely different players. By all indications, Howard’s 2007 (when his BB% was up around 16%) was a complete fluke. He’s just not great at taking a walk… And, despite lowering his K% slightly, that inability to take a walk makes him much, much more of an all-or-nothing type.

I don’t think anybody would argue that Adam Dunn is underrated. He is, to a tragic extent. The mainstream baseball journalist has used Dunn as a scapegoat for everything they hate about sabermetrics, which is just not fair. They don’t seem to understand why Dunn is such a valuable hitter. He works counts, and he understands that discipline breeds power. Ever wonder why Howard had such dramatic peaks in SLG from 2005-2007? It actually has a lot to do with the fact that he was being more selective with his pitches, something that I think Dunn has always understood.

In fact, that’s what makes Dunn’s line even more impressive. He may never hit for average, but he walks so much that his OBP is right up there with the league leaders. Some could argue that the only reason he hasn’t hit for average is because of consistent bad luck (a BABIP that has only topped .300 once in the last 5 years), but I think the real reasons are that a.) he doesn’t put many balls into play, b.) his inherent raw power means that the balls he does put into play are mainly fly balls, and c.) fly balls have a greater chance of becoming outs than ground balls do. Is this a bad thing? No, not really- I’d wager that most of those fly balls are pretty deep, and you don’t exactly want a guy with Dunn’s lack of speed hitting ground balls, anyway. It’s just the type of hitter he is, and the sad reality of our current baseball climate is that this type of hitter will always be drastically underrated.

While most of us probably would agree that RBI are highly team-dependent and are not a particularly valuable metric (particularly when considering those with predictive value), MVP voters seem to look at nothing but RBI at times. I’d bet if you append those stats above with each player’s RBI, it would illustrate the difference between their actual value (slash lines, adjusted for context) and their perceived value.

that Howard is rated right about where he should be. He is a great hitter, and ok in the field. The only reason I would say that Dunn is underrated is because he is on the Nationals. He has 16HR, yet no one even notices it. If he was on a team like the yankees, those 16HR would be noticed and he would be overrated. With 16HR, he has only 42 RBI, but he is still underrated. So to clearify what I’m saying, Howard is rated about right, and Dunn is underrated.

is underrated only because he is on the nats this year. The one player that is very underrated is Adrian Gonzalez.

Adam Dunn is the superior hitter, but… if its posisble; he is the the worse defender. With people finally coming around to the “Moneyball stats”, Dunn is getting much more recognition (by people whose opinions matter), but he is such a hindrance in the field (or at DH) that it just isn’t worth it. 1B masks it a little bit, but both are destined for DH.

People talk of Howard like a consistent 4 or 5 win player, which he is no where close to being,

but…

When you phrase it the way tou did Adam Dunn comes off as a 3-4 win player as well, which he probably wont be unless he can put up a wOBA over .420 for a full season. I’d probably expect it between .380 and .400.

So in conclusion they are both overrated, just Howard is much much much much more overrated.