Dustin Pedroia will only turn 41 when he makes his debut in the Hall of Fame voting for the Class of 2025.
Pedroia officially retired Monday, closing the book on a memorable career for the Red Sox at just 37 years old. The injury to his left knee, which never healed properly despite attempts to do better, resulted in partial knee replacement surgery that was delayed until December 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic. With that the door was finally closed.
“I was physically unable to play with a partial knee replacement,” Pedroia said at a Zoom press conference on Monday afternoon. “When I did that, I knew.”
MORE: Nolan Arenado trade analysis
However, life after the operation has been encouraging as he looks to his future with his wife and three children.
“I used to mill every day just to be able to play with my kids, just to have a normal life,” he said. “My knee was bad and I am a young man. I had the surgery in December and a week later I found that I could walk without pain. I could basically do anything but run. I can’t run anymore which one is fine. I don’t have to run. ”
With Pedroia finally becoming a former ball player, it’s only natural to put his career in perspective. And these recaps raises an obvious question: will Pedroia end up in the Hall of Fame?
His resume in Cooperstown is quite fascinating.
Let’s start here: The Hall of Fame plaque gallery has 20 players who have been primarily second basemen during their careers (Miller Huggins was also a second baseman but was inducted as a manager). Of these 20 second sacks, the average bWAR is 69.5, the average JAWS 57.0, and the average bWAR7 (seven-year high) 44.4.
Pedroia checks in at 51.6 bWAR, 46.3 JAWS and 41.0 bWAR7.
Unsurprisingly, Pedroia comes closest to the average Hall of Famer in Peak WAR. Roberto Alomar and Craig Biggio were both elected in their sophomore year in the BBWAA vote, and their bWAR7 numbers are very similar: 42.9 and 41.8, respectively.
Pedroia’s back-of-the-baseball card counting stats are somewhat missing as injury problems limited him to basically just eight healthy seasons (defined as years with more than 105 games played). Pedroia finished with 1,512 games; Of these 20 Hall of Fame secondary bases, only Jackie Robinson (1,382) played fewer games. Fourteen of the 20 players had more than 2,100 games.
Nevertheless, Pedroias 51.6 bWAR is better than six of the 20 already in Cooperstown: Bobby Doerr (51.1), Nellie Fox (49.5), Johnny Evers (47.7), Tony Lazzeri (47.3), Red Schoendienst (44.2) and Bill Mazeroski (36.5). And it’s worth noting that four players with incredible careers skew the numbers for the “average” Hall of Fame second baseman.
Rogers Hornsby checks in at 127.1, Eddie Collins at 123.9, Nap Lajoie at 107.3, and Joe Morgan at 100.5. Pedroia’s career, of course, was not the same as these four. But that’s not really the question. The question is, how does Pedroia compete against ALL second bases of the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
It’s better than you might think, especially when you look at it through the right lens.
MORE: Why did the Yankees sell Adam Ottavino to the Red Sox?
Pedroia made an immediate impression on the major leagues after a stellar career in the US state of Arizona. It was the overwhelming choice for 2007 AL Rookie of the Year; he hit .317 in 139 games with a 3.9 bWAR. In 2008 he won another award: the AL MVP. Pedroia led the league with a 6.9 bWAR, hitting 0.326 with 118 runs, 213 hits, 17 homers, 20 stolen bases and 83 RBIs. He also won the gold glove.
He was a four-time AL All-Star (2008-10, 2013) and a four-time Gold Glove winner (2008, 2011, 2013-14). In his last full year when he was 32, Pedroia scored in 2016 with 15 homers and an OPS of 0.825,318. He had dealt with a painful knee injury in 2017 – Manny Machado slipped over the second base and hit Pedroia’s knee in April – he hit .293 in 105 games. He would only play nine games in total in 2018-19. In those nine games, he went 3:31 and lowered his career average from 0.300 to 0.299.
During Pedroia’s years in Boston, the Red Sox were regular after-season contestants. Pedroia hit .325 in 20 ALCS games with a base percentage of .422. His Red Sox won the World Series twice – they won both times – and he was right in the middle of it all. In his very first Bat World Series, Pedroia led the first game of the fall 2007 classic with a solo home game against Rockies starter Jeff Francis to give the Sox a 1-0 lead. In Game 1 of the 2013 World Series, Pedroia went 2: 4 with two runs and one RBI.
But the injuries again. Only 18 of the 162 position players in the Hall of Fame played fewer than Pedroia’s 1,512 games. Of those 18, only five were chosen by the BBWAA, which is the stricter standard (although all are treated equally in Cooperstown). These five: Jackie Robinson, Hank Greenberg, Roy Campanella, Ralph Kiner and Mickey Cochrane.
Robinson’s entry into the MLB ranks was obviously delayed. Campanella’s career ended early after a car accident left him in a wheelchair. Cochrane finished at 34 after being hit in the head with a fastball. Greenberg missed three full seasons by World War II. Kiner retired at 32 with a back injury.
So there is a precedent for stars with shortened careers to be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Was Pedroia’s time in the Cooperstown field worthy? He has an MVP and two World Series titles on his resume. And when it is healthy, you cannot deny its effectiveness. In its eight “full” seasons, its “worst” bWAR 3.9, released twice (139 games in 2007, 135 games in 2014). In the three seasons in which he played between 75 and 105 games, his bWAR was at least 2.5. And maybe it’s not worth mentioning, but given the players on the 2022 ballot, there’s a refreshing lack of negatives to take into account in Pedroia’s candidacy.
Does Dustin Pedroia’s career look like a “typical” Hall of Famer career? No it doesn’t. However, a very strong argument can be made that he belongs, or at least deserves to be on the vote for more than just a year.
Comments are closed.