By Curt Alliaume
Shawon Dunston was a pretty good baseball player who suffered from not
being the superstar the Chicago Cubs and their fans expected.
Dunston was the 1st overall draft pick in baseball in 1982
out of Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, where he’d hit .790 his senior
year (that’s not a typo). The Cubs originally intended to switch him from
shortstop to third base according to a story in The New York Times, but
that plan apparently evaporated partway through his first year in Rookie ball.
By 1985, at age 22, he was ready for the majors, much to the
displeasure of the incumbent shortstop, Larry Bowa, who was 39 years old and
hit .223 with a .274 on-base percentage and .269 slugging percentage the year
before, which was the lowest OPS for anyone in MLB with over 400 plate
appearances. Bowa was clearly about done – the problem was Bowa, who probably
has had the longest case of RA in baseball history, didn’t think so and blasted
Cubs manager Jim Frey after the change was made and for years afterward. “Frey
was always an offensive-oriented manager,” Bowa wrote in his book, entitled Bleep! “He really didn`t like singles. He came from Baltimore with the three-run
homer. You know, the Earl Weaver thing.” That quote didn’t wear well.
Anyway, Dunston got off to a slow start, so the Cubs sent him down to
Triple-A for a few months to get his bearings. Once he came back up, he was
made the starting shortstop (and Bowa was released). Dunston stayed as more or
less the Cubs’ regular shortstop for the next decade. But that doesn’t mean he
was a great shortstop. Bill James wrote in The Baseball Book 1991 “the
problem with Dunston is that he really has no offensive role. With his very low
on-base percentages he can’t lead off, despite his speed and base stealing
skills, which are very good. With his strikeouts you don’t want him batting
second, and while he is a good hitter for a shortstop, he doesn’t hit enough to
hit 3-4-5 ahead of [Andre] Dawson, [Ryne] Sandberg, [Mark] Grace, [George]
Bell, et al. He’s just a very good hitter for a guy somewhere at the bottom of
the order.”
James pointed out Dunston had the worst strikeout/walk ratio in the
majors in 1990 among players with 400 or more plate appearances, which was basically
his problem at the plate. In 1989 he’d had his best offensive season, hitting
.278 with a .724 OPS, and walking 30 times in 512 plate appearances. That last
number wasn’t great, but considering he’d walked 66 times in 1,817 plate
appearances the previous four seasons, there was some reason to think he’d
turned a corner. He hadn’t; his career walk percentage (walks divided by plate
appearances) was 3.2 percent; only three players in 2019 did worse. Dunston was
a pretty decent fielder with a great arm for the first few seasons, and then
went steadily downhill, which is no surprise. Ozzie Guillen, playing crosstown
for the White Sox, never took walks either (3.4 walk percentage), but Guillen
also rarely struck out and was a far better fielder.
James ranked him fifth among National League shortstops going into 1992 – which
sounds pretty decent until you look at the list. Ahead of him were Barry Larkin
(who was drafted in the second round by the Reds the same year Dunston was
taken first overall, but didn’t sign; Cincinnati would draft him in the first
round three years later and got a Hall of Fame shortstop), Ozzie Smith, Tony
Fernandez, and Jay Bell; after Dunston there was a major drop off (Kevin Elster
and Bill Pecota for the Mets, Wilfredo Cordero for Montreal, etc.). Dunston signed
a four-year, $12 million deal with the Cubs after the 1991 season, but injured
his back in 1992 and missed most of the year, and then tried to come back too
soon in 1993 and missed most of that year as well. By the time he got back in
1994, he was 31 years old and lost some speed on the bases and range in the
field; the Cubs did not try to resign him after the 1995 season.
Dunston wound up making a journey through the majors after that,
turning into a utility player, mostly playing in the outfield (although he went
back to shortstop in a pinch). He went to the San Francisco Giants in 1996,
followed by the Cubs again, the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland, a second tour
with the Giants, St. Louis, the Mets, the Cardinals again, and then Giants for
a third time, playing his last game in 2002. I get the sense he was a pretty good guy in the clubhouse. His son, Shawon Jr., was drafted
by the Cubs in 2011, but never made it past A ball.
