Archive for Dustin Pedroia

Check out last month’s rankings here.

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No more bland, rote tiers from this guy! Thanks to the urging of commenter “Urban Shocker,” my eyes are now open to the fun that can be had with ridiculously labeled tiers. You see, I used to just write these monthly second-base columns with boring old numbered tiers. That is, until Urban Shocker convinced me in the comments section of my April rankings to name my tiers from then on.

To be perfectly honest, the task of doing these monthly rankings can get rather stale — for both me and you — as the season wears on. Eventually, it gets to the point where the rankings barely change, because 30-day samples don’t substantially change the way I/we think about a certain player.

Furthermore, there’s only so many ways I can say “Jose Altuve had a good month again,” or “Dee Gordon steals lots of bases,” or “Holy crap, Dan Uggla is so incredibly terrible!” (Actually, never mind on that last one. I will never get sick of making jokes about Uggla, who got paid $13 million last year to post a weighted offense 72% below league-average.)

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In 2013, Dustin Pedroia had what most fantasy baseball enthusiasts considered a down year. Despite hitting .301/.372/.415, Pedroia’s counting stats slipped to single digit home runs, and he failed to break 20 stolen bases for the first time since 2007 (not counting injury-plagued 2010). He did provide plenty of runs and RBI for the World Series champs, and considering he played with a troublesome thumb injury for quite some time, there were many who considered him a good bounceback candidate after getting it fixed in November of last year.

And why not a bounceback? After all, Pedroia had pretty firmly settled himself behind Robinson Cano in the top tier of second basemen for the better part of five seasons going back to 2008. Pedroia was a perennial .300 hitter with 20-20 written all over him, and among league leaders at second base in runs and RBI. With the thumb issue behind him, most prognosticators saw a return to 15 home runs and 20 stolen bases at a minimum, with his typical associated counting stat output to follow.

And then on April 4th, the Red Sox home opener, Carlos Gomez slid into second base to break up a double play. Pedroia went up in the air, and came down on his surgically repaired hand. And Pedroia’s season kind of mirrored that of the Boston Red Sox all season — it just never materialized. And in fact, Pedroia aggravated his hand injury several times over the course of the season, ultimately succumbing to surgery in September when it was clear the Red Sox weren’t going anywhere in 2014 and/or he just couldn’t play with it anymore. He would finish with a .278/.337/.376 slash line with seven home runs, just five stolen bases and the lowest wOBA as a professional by far at .318.

Looking at his 2014 performance is going to be difficult inasmuch as using it as a predictor for future contributions. Because there’s no doubt you need strong hands in order to hit a baseball, and if Pedroia lacked that for the majority of the season, well then maybe his performance was actually miraculous.

If you look at his batted ball data, Pedroia was well within what would be considered normal for his career:

His line drive rate was actually at a career high at nearly 24% while his fly ball rate was at a career low. His HR/FB rate was at its lowest mark since 2007, but if you look at his average distance on fly balls and home runs over the past four seasons, it might signal some bad luck (by his standard):

So after seeing his fly ball and home run distance drop to a pretty paltry 265 feet, it popped back up in 2014 almost to the level it was when he hit a career high 21 home runs. But obviously, the home runs never really materialized in 2014.

Something that might be of concern, and perhaps just a measure of his age, is the steady decline in his pitch values on fastballs:

I include sliders here simply because that’s the second most frequent pitch Pedroia sees, and he’s holding his own there — but on fastballs, which he sees almost 40% of the time, he has been in steady decline for five seasons, although this year was a hair less terrible than last year. I’m not sure we can pin all of this on a bad hand, but it could be part of the explanation.

Pedroia has been a guy who historically has used all fields pretty well, and his scatter plot from the 2014 season demonstrates a pretty decent distribution:

But somewhere around mid-season, Pedroia started to become a very pull-heavy hitter (from July 15 to end of season):

And during that same time span, he became a much heavier ground ball hitter in lieu of line drives:

This data is what makes me lean towards his hand bugging him. He was hitting less like Pedroia than ever, and it just deteriorated over the course of the season. It’s incredibly difficult to predict which Pedroia will show up in 2015, but I’ll certainly be looking for news on his health, specifically that troublesome hand. Because he’s now seen two seasons ostensibly derailed by the same hand injury and prior to that, he was one of the most reliable second baseman in both real and fantasy baseball. He could be a bargain on draft day, but the risk is high — if he turns in another year like 2014, you’ll be kicking yourself all the way to Rickie Weeks.

*Updated 10/23/2014 with Position Tiers ($5.00 USD).

The 2015 Steamer projections are up on FanGraphs! “Steamer” uses playing time projections from our depth charts, but right now there are important players (Dustin Pedroia and Jon Lester for examples) missing actual projected playing time. I therefore went into mensch-mode and manually updated Plate Appearance and Innings Pitched projections – very manually, but at least somewhat rational. What I did for these players was go into their “Steamer 600” projections and took their HR, R, RBI and SB per Plate Appearance projected rates (W, SV, SO per Inning Pitched for pitchers) and outputted associated counting stats connected to the quantity of Plate Appearances/Innings Pitched.

*To see which players I manipulated, go into the “P” and “H” tabs in the below embedded file: click on the “…” tab to the left of the current depicted tab. I highlighted all names and counting stats per plate appearance or innings pitched that I edited in Yellow so that I can associate some accountability with the end-rankings. I edited a few catchers’ PA totals even though Steamer already had totals for them (Lucroy, Mesoraco, etc.). I also edited Troy Tulowitzki‘s and Carlos Gonzalez’s PA totals, because…well, you know. I could spend all month editing the PA totals, but I’m not that much of a mensch.

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We’re a month through the season, and fantasy owners are already jumping to huge conclusions regarding the 2014 season. These tiered rankings attempt to capture the production from the first month of the season, moving some players up and down where I felt it was necessary, but largely, I attempted to refrain from getting too caught up in the ebbs and flows of single-month performance. There are five months remaining in the 2014 season. Lots will change, and I didn’t want to make the tiered rankings a simple “who is performing well right now,” as that’s not overly useful.

Anyway, here we go.

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With two months under our collective belts in the fantasy baseball season, guys are really starting to move in the rankings. Some slow beginnings have lingered longer than expected, and some scorching starts have surprisingly possessed staying power. As with most rankings lists, there will be some (read: a lot) of disagreement, so without any further ado, here are the tiers:

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Dustin Pedroia must have wondered exactly how he insulted the patron saint of thumbs. He injured the abductor muscle in his right thumb in May, causing him to miss six games, and then a month later, he hyperextended the same thumb. As my kid would say, “ouchers miscouchers.”

There’s no way of knowing how that specifically impacted his hitting, but you have to believe it certainly didn’t help. Despite the thumb injuries (and a host of other dings), Pedroia still managed to hit 15 home runs, steal 20 bags and amass a triple slash of .290/.347/.449, placing him eighth on the Zach Sanders supernatural end of season rankings at second base.

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So we’ve done a pretty thorough bludgeoning of the recent reader mock draft, looking at almost every round except for the fliers, and covering several of the positions along the way as well. Second base has me particularly concerned headed into 2012, so let’s break down how the readers handled the challenge of staffing their squads at that position.

The following chart is pretty self explanatory – where the player was selected in the reader mock, what their average draft position is over at Mock Draft Central, and the difference between the two to the right:

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Before I begin, please allow me to congratulate both Craig Kimbrel and Jeremy Hellickson for winning their respective league’s 2011 Rookie of the Year awards.  It was the first time since 1981 when Dave Righetti (NYY- AL) and Fernando Valenzuela (LAD- NL) won that each league’s award went to a pitcher in the same season.  Both seemed deserving of such esteemed honors, although one brings on a greater debate than the other.  Kimbrel, with a record 46 saves by a rookie, finished with a 2.10 ERA, a 1.04 WHIP, and an eye-popping 127 strikeouts in 77 innings of work.  Hellickson, starter of 29 games and winner of 13, finished the season with a 2.95 ERA, a 1.15 WHIP and notched 117 Ks in a rookie-leading 189 innings.  I could talk about peripherals and who was more deserving and what not, but that’s neither here nor there right now.  What is important is how winning this award affects the value of each player in 2012 fantasy baseball drafts.   All too often, players are drafted based on name and hype and winning the Rookie of the Year award certainly helps build both.  So before you go breaking the bank to acquire this year’s crop, allow me to point out that you should probably keep your expectations low.

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All this week, I’ll be looking at potential keepers at each position that you may be on the fence about. Now, a look at some second basemen.

Dustin Pedroia
Odds are you drafted Pedroia in the second round, or maybe the third round if you got lucky. With a serious foot injury on everyone’s mind, owners may be forgetting the fantastic season Pedroia was having before he got hurt. How will his injury affect his next season? We really can’t say for sure, so he may end up being a gamble on draft day.
Crude 2011 Projection: .300/.385, 18 HR, 15 SB
Verdict: Keep. The foot may decrease his stolen bases, but he’s still a stud.

Martin Prado
If you look away from his counting stats, Prado’s numbers are almost identical to 2009. It doesn’t feel like it, but Prado is still young and just entering his peak. He’ll be playing in a good lineup next year, so he could score 100 runs again without breaking a sweat.
Crude 2011 Projection: .310/.355, 17 HR, 5 SB
Verdict: Keep. He should be plenty healthy by spring, so I’m not worried about him.

Ben Zobrist
Want to know just how good Zobrist was in 2009? Even in a down year, Zobrist was a three win player this year. Impressive. Zobrist stayed on rosters this year thanks to good counting stats, and shortstop eligibility. He won’t be SS eligible next year, so what do we make of him? Can he bounce back?
Crude 2011 Projection: .275/.390, 14 HR, 20 SB
Verdict: Keep. He’s an OBP stud, and that’ll help the rest of his numbers. Still a very good second baseman.

Gordon Beckham
He was a disappointment early, but a stellar July and August gave everyone hope. He caught the injury bug late this season, but he’ll be fine next year.
Crude 2011 Projection: .275/.340, 12 HR, 5 SB
Verdict: Cut. He’s got upside, but you can do better for what he’ll cost you.

Rickie Weeks
Weeks finally made good on the potential everyone saw early in his career. While he still hasn’t cut back on the strikeouts, his counting stats are ridiculous, making him one of the best players at his position.
Crude 2011 Projection: .265/.350, 26 HR, 13 SB
Verdict: Keep. The RBI’s and Runs he provides your team are tremendous.

Eric Young (Jr.)
EYJR is one of the fastest players in major league baseball, but the Rockies don’t seem to want to give him a chance.
Crude 2011 Projection: .265/.330, 0 HR, 15 SB
Verdict: Cut. I love me some EYJR, but the Rockies won’t let him play enough to make him worth owning.

If you have a second basemen you’re on the fence about, leave it in the comments. If I see a player showing up in the comments multiple times, I may do a writeup on them for next week.

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.