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Player Breakdown :: Dustin Pedroia
by Gil W.
Published: June 28, 2009, 6:10 pm
Dustin Pedroia
 In his first full year in the league, he won the Rookie of the Year award. In his second full season, he won the Most Valuable Player award. So we're now in his third full season, Hall of Fame induction? Pedroia so far has disappointed a lot this season. A huge part of his value on the field comes from his defense, but last season he showed that he can be a great offensive player too (for a 2B at least). 2009 though is a different story as his numbers are down across the board. Overall, he hasn't been horrible at all, but lets see if we can see why he isn't hitting like he did as an MVP last season, or even as the ROY.
2009 stats
.292 Batting Average
2 Home runs
54 runs
30 RBIs
12 Stolen Bases
The most notable differences in 2009 vs. 2008 as far as fantasy stats are concerned is his lack of home runs as well as a decrease in his RBIs. First, lets look at the RBIs. RBIs are more a result of luck rather than skill and are very dependent on the offense around a player. Right now though, Pedroia has been moved to the lead-off spot for the Red Sox lineup which cuts his number of opportunities to hit with men on base down. Looking at the numbers, the Red Sox offense is on pace to do better than last year's (by runs scored) and Pedroia has an .848 OPS with RISP. It looks like the big difference in his RBI production is simply his HR difference. Last year, Pedoria had 27 RBIs on 17 HRs. This year, he's got 4 RBis on 2 HRs. For a guy hitting at the top of the order, he's clearly going to need to start hitting for some more power to get back to a reasonable amount of RBIs.
So lets take a look at his power this season. His SLG for his career before this season was .459 while he's only at .387 now. Compared to his minor league numbers, Pedroia's power this season is a bit low overall, but the HR numbers were to be expected. Last year's numbers suggest otherwise. Looking at the distance and position of his home runs over his career, something interesting pops out at you. First, he has yet to hit a HR to CF or RF in teh regular season. He has pulled all of his home runs. The other thing that pops out is that he has never cracked the 400 foot mark and most of his home runs are right around the 350 foot mark. This season, he has averaged exactly that between his two home runs which makes his 2.1 HR/FB% very easy to understand. Even last year, he still had a low HR/FB ratio of 7.8%, but due to his 726 PAs, he was able to have a solid total number of home runs.
Another thing to look at for Pedroia this season is his BA. Again, last season he was a .326 hitter and the year before that, he was at .317. The main difference is in his BABIP. While he was at .335 over the past 2 seasons, he's right at .312 this season. That difference has cost him about 20 points in BA. Looking at his batted ball data, there is no significant difference in how he is hitting the ball this year vs. how he has hit the ball in the past to account for that difference in BABIP. The remaining BA difference is just the difference in HR power he has shown this year vs. previous years.
So expect Pedroia to start hitting better from this point forward. He has actually lowered his strikeout rate this season. So since his BABIP should start trending up, he is putting more balls in play this season than in the past which means that BA could finish the season around .310 or higher. The thing Pedroia has shown this year though is that he should never be expected to hit more than 15 home runs in a season. 10 is probably pushing it. With his dead pull approach, he's going to have to get much stronger to be able to consistently hit home runs, especially with the Green Monster in Fenway. The other thing to watch is where Pedroia will hit in the lineup. If Pedroia goes back to the 2 spot, expect his RBI numbers to go back up to a respectable level. Ichiro with less speed is a good comp for what to expect for Pedroia from here on out, especially if OBP is counted in your league instead of BA.
Feel free to send any requests for players for me to breakdown to gdawg@fantasyplaymakers.com or stop by the forums and post a request.
Compare Pedroia to the top drafted 2B here .
Compare Pedroia to the currently top ranked 2B here .
Thanks to Fangraphs, Baseball-Reference, HitTrackerOnline, and Fantasy Playmakers for the stats. All Stats updated through June 26th. |
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