Oakland Athletics slugger Adam Dunn rethinking retirement talk

By Phil Watson | Sep 3, 2014

September 3, 2014; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics designated hitter Adam Dunn (10) hits a solo home run during the fourth inning against the Seattle Mariners at O.co Coliseum. The Mariners defeated the Athletics 2-1. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports /

On Sunday, Adam Dunn of the Oakland Athletics said he was probably going to retire at the end of the 2014 season.

On Wednesday, it’s a different story.

According to John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle, via Twitter:

Dunn on retirement: “Obviously, things have changed now. I owe it to myself to put that on the back burner for at least a couple months.”
— John Shea (@JohnSheaHey) September 3, 2014

Dunn is in a pennant race in his 14th season, having never appeared in a postseason game. He homered off Seattle Mariners’ ace Felix Hernandez in a 2-1 loss on Wednesday, his second homer in three games since he was acquired by the A’s for minor-league right-hander Nolan Sanburn on Sunday.

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It was Dunn’s 1,979th career game, leaving him 15th on the list of players with the most career games without a postseason appearance.

But that list is dotted with players who spent the majority of their careers in the pre-division play era.

Only Buddy Bell (2,405) and Toby Harrah (2,155) have played more games without making the playoffs among players who played all or most of their careers since divisional play began in 1969.

Dunn is 4-for-8 with two home runs and four RBI in three games with the A’s and for the season is hitting .226/.345/.450 in 109 games with 22 homers and 58 RBI.

That is the story of Dunn’s career, though. He now has 462 career home runs and is a lifetime .238/.365/.492 hitter and his 2,355 strikeouts is third-most all-time behind Reggie Jackson (2,597) and Jim Thome (2,548), but he’s done it in far fewer plate appearances.

Dunn has 8,261 career plate appearances. Jackson had 11,418 and Thome went to the plate 10,313 times.

Dunn’s 222 strikeouts in 2012 is the second-most ever in a season, topped only by the 223 put up by Mark Reynolds of the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2009.