Maybe he woulda'

An e-mail from last week:
Something is upside down in baseball when Russell Branyan is batting second (and over .300), for the Mariners.
-- Jim

Here are his 2009 and career numbers as of today:
Team G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
2009 SEA 53 189 35 60 14 0 14 29 29 57 2 0 .317 .413 .614 1.026
Career 819 2189 318 520 110 7 147 349 310 854 13 4 .238 .335 .496 .831

I wonder, had Branyan been given a chance to play every day for a few years early in his career, if he would be the same kind of player as Adam Dunn -- able to hit 40 home runs and draw a good number of walks every year.

(Edited to add the following)
Dunn's career:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
Career 1191 4080 730 1010 209 8 295 717 847 1319 59 20 .248 .382 .520 .902

Dunn looks a little better, but he had the advantage of playing regularly from the start of his career. He also probably walks more than Branyan would have.

(Resume original post.)

Here is Branyan's list of most similar players, as calculated by similarity score from Baseball-Reference.com. You'll note that Dunn is not on the list.
Craig Wilson (914)
Bo Jackson (912)
Nick Swisher (911)
Ken Phelps (911)
Phil Plantier (909)
Willie Greene (908)
Don Lock (900)
Eric Anthony (897)
Morgan Ensberg (892)
Bubba Trammell (891)

For what its worth, here's Dunn's list:
Pat Burrell (892)
Gorman Thomas (876)
Hank Sauer (872)
Pete Incaviglia (869)
Kevin Mitchell (869)
Jesse Barfield (869)
Wally Post (868)
Gus Zernial (866)
Cliff Johnson (864)
J.D. Drew (856)

I bet those lists would have a lot more in common had Branyan been with an organization early in his career that was desperate for home runs.
I was surprised not to see Jack Cust in there somewhere. But, Cust got an opportunity to play every day for the past few years. Branyan has remained mostly a part-timer.
For fun, here's Cust's list. Still seems like the same general type of player. I am surprised that Branyan and Cust don't show up on each other's lists.
Jonny Gomes (954)
Sam Horn (952)
Jason Lane (944)
Jon Nunnally (942)
Melvin Nieves (939)
Marcus Thames (937)
Chris Duncan (934)
Mike Simms (934)
Brant Brown (932)
Chuck Essegian (932)