El Cardquistador

Dillon Dingler’s 2024 mid-season debut was bad. Real bad. In limited action, he hit just .167 with one home run and 11 RBIs. Small sample, sure, but the first impression wasn’t encouraging.

So when 2025 opened with a brutal April—13 hits in 70 at-bats, a .186 average, and 22 strikeouts—it didn’t feel like a slump. It felt like confirmation. June wasn’t much better: a .211 average, just a handful of walks, and an OBP south of .300.

I wasn’t evaluating Dingler—I was filtering him through the 2024 lens. The early 2025 slumps didn’t just reinforce the narrative—they cemented it. I stopped tracking. I stopped adjusting. And even when his numbers stabilized, I didn’t recalibrate until postseason reflection.

The reality? By season’s end, Dingler had put together a solid line: .278 average, 13 home runs, 57 RBIs, and a .752 OPS. Not elite, but far from awful—a competent everyday contributor behind the plate.

It’s a common perception trap. Careers and abilities are easily overshadowed by memorable slumps or mistakes. Take Bill Buckner: he collected more than 2,700 hits, won a batting title, and carried a .289 career average across 22 seasons. He logged multiple .300 campaigns, drove in 100 runs twice, and was one of the toughest players of his era to strike out. Yet one error—Game 6 of the 1986 World Series—became his defining moment, shrinking a career of durability and production into a single miscue. Similarly, Dave Kingman hit 442 home runs, including 48 in ’79, but his legacy is often framed more by streaky averages and high strikeout totals than by his prodigious power. In 1984, he slumped through a brutal August stretch, hitting just .143 over two weeks. In 1986, his final season, he hit .210 again with a dismal .255 OBP—despite clubbing 35 home runs.

This isn’t about redemption. It’s about recognizing how easily perception drifts from reality. Slumps blur the lens. Blunders cement the myth. And if we don’t recalibrate, we end up mistaking the trough for the truth.

Sorry, Dillon. I judged your hitting ability too harshly. While I stand by what I said earlier, I should have leaned toward “competent but not elite” instead of “awful.”