Adam Dunn or Alex Rios: Which Chicago White Sox Is the Bigger Bust?

Sorry, White Sox fans. It's been a long season. The White Sox who seem to contend every season never really got into a groove this season. Pitchers John Danks and Jake Peavy have been injured frequently, Gavin Floyd continues to be maddeningly inconsistent. Matt Thornton didn't pan out as a closer. 

All of those problems have contributed to Chicago's current 60-60, .500 record. If not for the overall mediocrity of the American League Central then White Sox fans would already be thinking about next year's squad. Luckily, the AL Central is weak and the White Sox are still only three-and-a-half games out of first place, with more than a month of baseball left. 

The White Sox might be able to make a run, but to do that they're going to need two men in their every-day lineup to start to produce in the manner in which everyone knows they can. That's because Alex Rios and Adam Dunn have been terrible this season.

Not disappointing—terrible.

We're not talking about young, inexperienced players having some growing pains, and we're well past the "off to a slow start" portion of the season. It's mid-August and both of these guys, who have been All-Stars, have numbers one would associate with either a struggling rookie or an over-the-hill veteran on his last legs. 

Alex Rios is 30 years old. A career .275 hitter, Rios is coming off a 2010 season that saw him hit 21 homers, with 34 stolen bases and a .284 batting average. So far this season he's just a tad off that pace.

How would you like to have a middle-of-the-lineup starter with numbers like this nearly three quarters through the season?

Rios has seven home runs, 10 stolen bases and only 28 RBI. He's hitting a laughable .212. His OPS is among the lowest in baseball among every-day players at .563. Rios has been healthy all season—this is probably little comfort to White Sox fans who likely feel ill looking at his production. 

Perhaps White Sox fans would feel better about the season being turned in by Rios if they took a look at what teammate Adam Dunn was doing.

Dunn, who inked a four-year, $56-million contract to come to the South Side this past offseason has struggled more than anyone would have thought possible with his adjustment to the American League. 

Dunn is a career .245 hitter, so it's unlikely that either White Sox fans or management thought they were getting a player who would flirt with .300. That being said, it's also unlikely they expected to see the batting average Dunn has in mid-August: .161.

That's right, Adam Dunn is an every-day baseball player and former All-Star who is batting .161.

Rob Deer hit .179 for Detroit in 1991, but he did manage to hit 25 home runs that season. Dunn hasn't had a season with less than 35 home runs since 2003, so he's probably still mashing, right? 

Wrong. Dunn isn't mashing. In fact, Dunn isn't doing much of anything except striking out and possibly making teammate Alex Rios feel better about his own awful season. Dunn has only 11 home runs and 40 RBI as of now. Dunn has fanned 146 times, so at least he leads the league in something. 

On Opening Day this season, Dunn hit third and Rios hit fifth. Between them was Paul Konerko and the White Sox looked like they would be an offensive powerhouse this year.

Instead, the White Sox are 10th in runs scored in the American League and 19th in the Majors.

Dunn and Rios haven't been letdowns, they've been terrible. Should the White Sox end up falling short in a push to make the postseason, these two will have to shoulder a good deal of the blame.

Who's the bigger bust?

Well, the combination of the contract and the batting average really make Dunn the choice here.

This isn't a "good or bad" debate. It's more like "bad or worse" debate.

Rios is hitting only .212, but Dunn's .161 is just remarkable.

Both players are almost guaranteed to have bounce-back seasons next year. They've lowered the bar for success to a point where they have nowhere to go but up.

White Sox fans better hope they both compete for "Comeback Player of the Year" in 2012, because it will be tough to watch repeats of the stinkers these two guys have put together this season.