Cincinnati slugger Adam Dunn struck out 194 times in 2006, securing the highest strikeout total in the majors for the third straight season. Strikeouts often go hand-in-hand with home runs, and Dunn, who has averaged 42 homers a year over the last three seasons, has taken his strikeout rate to an extreme.

In those three years, only two players have stroked more homers than the 126 generated by Dunn: David Ortiz (142) and Albert Pujols (136). Dunn's 221 extra-base hits in this span is tied for sixth among all major league hitters, and only Ortiz, Pujols, Mark Teixeira, Alfonso Soriano and Manny Ramirez have more.

When Reds GM Wayne Krivsky announced early in November that former major leaguer Brook Jacoby had been hired to work on Dunn's strikeout rate, it rekindled a debate between this writer and Ron Thompson, an astute baseball analyst who covered the Milwaukee Brewers in the last edition of The Scouting Notebook.

Ron has always downplayed the notion that strikeouts are any worse than any other kind of out, believing it's hardly worth the time to debate the significance of strikeouts for a power hitter such as Dunn -- with his .533 slugging percentage and an average of 42 homers and 98 RBIs over the last three seasons.

That goes against my player-development dogma that making consistent contact and controlling the strike zone are the real tickets to becoming an effective hitter. Knowing the strike zone is especially important to power hitters, who will get more good pitches to hit if they can get ahead in the count regularly. Then the home runs will come, and strikeouts should drop off on their own by avoiding pitches outside of the zone.

I couldn't make an air-tight case that strikeouts were worse than any other kind of out, but I was inclined to think they were. A look at the 2006 numbers sheds some light on this debate.

There were 31,655 strikeouts recorded last season. Many of them, right off the top, were no different than any other kind of out.

A strikeout with no one on base could be a line shot to the center fielder at the wall or a weak grounder to the pitcher. There is no runner to advance, so it's of no consequence what type of out is made. The same is true with two outs, when any kind of out ends the inning.

Let's take a look at the breakdowns for all 2006 strikeouts. As one might expect, they are divided fairly evenly when looking at the number of outs. Whiffs that end an inning win by a hair.

Strikeout Breakdown by Number of Outs, 2006
Outs. . . . Total. . . . . Pct
0 outs. . 10,247. . . . 32.4
1 out. . . 10,435. . . . 33.0
2 outs. . 10,973. . . . 34.7

The data for strikeouts in on-base situations is far more interesting, with a substantial majority of the whiffs coming with no one aboard.

Strikeout Breakdown by Base Situation, 2006
On Base. . . . . . Total. . . . Pct
None on. . . . . 17,903. . . 56.6
One on. . . . . . .8,967. . . 28.3
Two on. . . . . . .3,943. . . 12.5
Bases loaded. . . . 842. . . .2.7

When you combine the number of strikeouts with the bases empty or two outs, the total is 24,157. That's a whopping 76.3 percent of all strikeouts in 2006.

If that percentage largely holds true for Dunn's strikeouts, that means roughly 150 of them were no different than any other out he made in 2006. That leaves in the neighborhood of 50 whiffs, many of which also were no different when you consider the number of flyballs, force outs and double plays that fail to advance runners. Chances are, no more than half of those 50 strikeouts were outs that were more detrimental than another kind of out he might have recorded. Perhaps it's quite a few less than half of them.

The 2006 numbers suggest that seldom is a strikeout worse than any other kind of out. There's some obvious logic to that when you consider at-bats with at least one baserunner aboard. The most common scenario is a runner on first and a possible force play in effect. In that case, a strikeout is no different than a grounder that retires only the lead runner or a flyball that doesn't travel deep enough to advance him. Only on a deep fly to the outfield or a play solely at first base does the lead runner advance on an out. And a strikeout is a better outcome than a double-play grounder.

On the other hand, all those whiffs by Dunn have made a dent in his overall hit total. While the Reds' slugger ranks among the best in homers and extra-base hits over the last three seasons, nearly 200 major league hitters have produced more singles during this span. So it appears Dunn's inability to make more consistent contact mostly has taken away the opportunity of finding a hole in the field when he wouldn't have hit the ball right on the money. He's missing out on his share of seeing-eye singles and lucky bloopers that drop in.

Still, Dunn has driven in 295 runs in those three years, the 20th-highest total, though he might rank with Ortiz, Pujols and Ramirez at the top of the leader board if he had been able to put the bat on the ball and simply find a hole more often. It's difficult, however, to quibble with Dunn's 34 doubles, 46 home runs, 102 RBIs and .957 OPS (on-base-plus slugging) in 2004, the year he struck out a career-high 195 times.

Reportedly Dunn is on the trading block. Krivsky wants to lower the number of strikeouts and gain some batting average in his everyday lineup, and dealing away home-run power has come easy for the Reds' GM. He's already traded Austin Kearns, Wily Mo Pena and Felipe Lopez, and Dunn, whose average has dropped from .266 to .247 to. 234 the last three seasons, may be the next to be moved to get pitching help.

Dunn's defensive prowess, or lack of it, also works against him. What appears to be the front office's biggest concern with Dunn, though, is his inability to overcome his high strikeout rate. The 27-year-old veteran is just entering his prime, so it's hard to comprehend bailing on him considering he also has drawn more than 100 walks in four of the last five seasons. His career on-base percentage is .380 -- despite a .245 average -- and his OPS (on-base-plus-slugging) is .893.

At the same time, his strikeout rate has climbed from one for every four plate appearances in 2002, his first full season in the majors, to one whiff for every 3.65 plate appearances the last three years. The issue with Dunn's strikeouts isn't that they are more damaging than any other kind of out he makes. It's that he could be creating more opportunities to reach base or advance runners if he could make more consistent contact at the plate.