It's the plate discipline that made Adam Dunn the cleanup hitter he is. And why the D'backs have already prospered from it in a very short time.
He takes alot of pitches. 'Swings at the ones he likes, which are in the strike zone. He will have his share of strikeouts. But they are far outweighed by the gains.
Helping drive up the oppostion pitch count and letting his teammates see what the guy has, or doesn't have, that day, and not be afraid to hit with two strikes. (Something you expect from a leadoff hitter like Craig Counsell, and have not seen since.)
On base half of the time. A homerun threat all the time, taking pressure off his teammates.
All of that make all of his strikeouts much more productive than Chris Young, for example, swinging at pitches outside the strike zone or Mark Reynolds trying to hit every ball into the seats.
Or Eric Byrnes (remember him?) uppercutting every ball with his one-handed swings from his ankles to his shoulders, then looking up in the sky to follow the ball.
And, sorry to disagree with you, 82CardsGrad, but I still feel that umpires respect that and show it in their calls on borderline pitches.
Yes, I cited the most famous of them all, Teddy Baseball. It is alive and well with Adam Dunn.
As has been said recently, Manny Ramirez's numbers with LA are more dynamic, and he certainly has helped the Dodgers lineup.
But Adam Dunn has been helping the young D'backs even more. Because of the plate discipline he exhibits days after day and the respect it usually gets from the umps.
