How will V-Mart's deal impact Adam Dunn?

by Phil Wood

Now that the Victor Martinez deal with Detroit is official, you have to wonder how much it will impact whatever contract Adam Dunn ends up with this winter.

V-Mart got a four-year, $50 million contract with the Tigers, who plan to use him behind the plate and occasionally at DH, so that young receiver Alex Avila can get some playing time. Do the math: that's an average of $12.5 million per season for a player who turns 32 in a month, and has a career .300 batting average. Martinez, a five-time All-Star, doesn't have Dunn's power, but averages 21 homers and 103 RBI every 162 games. He obviously has better defensive skills than Dunn, and is about 11 months older than Adam.

Dunn, coming off a two-year, $20 million deal with Washington - which broke down to $8 million in 2009, and $12 million in 2010 - is reportedly looking for four years, but a Martinez-like deal wouldn't represent much of a raise. The three-year deal offered by the Nationals has a higher per-year average than that, according to sources.

Dunn still has to decide whether to accept or decline the Nationals' offer of arbitration. The deadline on that is November 30. Maybe another franchise will come along and offer him a lot more than the Tigers are paying Martinez, though Detroit, as recently as last week, was rumored to be the front-runner for Dunn. The Martinez signing would tend to suggest that they're not quite as interested now, but we'll find out soon enough.