Replacing Dustin Pedroia, In Tiers

So it looks like Dustin Pedroia might be out for the year now that his foot has remained sore. His owners are left crying into their caps, and looking for replacements. Since it’s normally time for a middle infield update anyway, this works out well. We’ll look at possible replacements based on the size of your league. The benchmarks come from Jeff Zimmerman’s article here.

Shallow Leagues (58% owned or less)
If you are lucky, Omar Infante (60% owned) will be out there for you. He is one of the better possibilities for replacing the little-bit-of-power, little-bit-of-speed thing that Pedroia had going, and he is also atop one of the better lineups in the National League. But Infante doesn’t quite hit our benchmark, so Alberto Callaspo (46% owned) has a little more pop than Asdrubal Cabrera (44% owned) and might therefore be a better replacement for the balding Boston ballplayer. Though neither has shown much power or speed this year, it’s Callaspo that has had the best power year (.156 ISO in 2009) between the two and Cabrera that has had the best speed year (5.9 speed score in 2009). Depending on your priorities, they make decent stop-gaps.

12-Team Leagues (26% owned or less)
The options on this level are Orlando Hudson and Ryan Raburn, and both have a little more power than the guys above. Raburn’s currently showing a .176 ISO and has a .186 career number in that category, so he’s the guy to pick up for power. With his strikeout rate (26.2% this year, 25.9% career), he probably won’t put up a Pedroia-an batting average, and his speed has declined from about average (5.1 in 2008, 5.0 is average) to below average (3.8 in 2010) in three years. Hudson will give you a decent batting average as he has been within spitting distance of his .282 career batting average in most years. Unfortunately, he’s in the midst of a four-year decline in his power and now owns a poor ISO (.118). While his speed score is still above average (5.6), he hasn’t cracked double-digit in steals since 2007. Either way, Hudson is the closer comp to the Boston second baseman.

20-Team Leagues (1% owned or less)
Yes, Blake DeWitt is playing every day and is atop a lineup, but he’s also owned in 3% of Yahoo leagues, doesn’t have much pop or speed, and that Cubs lineup isn’t anywhere close to the Red Sox lineup. Well, none of your options in leagues of this size will come close to Pedroia’s excellence, so let’s just get that out of the way. No, of the second basemen owned in 1% of leagues (or less), it’s Chris Getz that is the most interesting. He’s mostly wrested the second base job away from Mike Aviles, but he’s just about as flawed as the man he replaces (or worse). He has no power to speak of (.040 ISO this year, .069 career, .150 ISO is average), and now that he’s 641 plate appearances into his career and showing the same walk rate every year (7.8% this year, 7.3% career), we can say he doesn’t really get on base at an average rate (8.5% walk rate is average this year). Well, he does do one thing. His speed score has stayed above average every year and is decent this year (5.5). He has some wheels. His 13 stolen bases (87% success rate) even means that he could equal a fictionally healthy Pedroia the rest of the way in one category. Unfortunately for deep league owners, it’s just one category.