Dustin Pedroia’s Hall of Fame Case: Part 1

We are less than a month away from the next Hall of Fame class from being announced. This year Dustin Pedroia is on the ballot for the first time and although he won’t be a first ballot Hall of Famer, my goal is to convince you that Dustin Pedroia belongs in Cooperstown despite his career getting cut short due to an injury.

There are 14 new names on the Hall of Fame ballot and the results will be revealed on January 21st. Here is the complete ballot.

Although the voting for the Hall is extremely subjective and biased, my hope is that the baseball writers take a long look at Pedroia’s career and what he accomplished because the second baseman had a decorated career that deserves to have a plaque in Cooperstown.

Pedroia had a 14 year career however he really only played in 12 seasons. His final 2 seasons consisted of 3 games and 6 games as he was trying to work his way back from a devastating knee injury. Unfortunately, the knee injury was too much to overcome and it ended Pedey’s career. If the majority of baseball fans would have looked at Pedroia’s numbers after the 2017 season, they would have agreed that Pedroia was on a Hall of Fame trajectory. Nobody would have expected Pedroia’s final “real season” to be at the age of 33.

Dustin Pedroia earned a lot of hardware in his big league career. The Red Sox second baseman won the AL Rookie of the Year, an MVP, 4 Gold Gloves, was selected to 4 All-Star teams, and won 2 World Series. He’s 1 of 31 players who have won the Rookie of the Year and an MVP award. Although winning these awards doesn’t guarantee a spot in the Hall, it definitely increases a player’s chances.

Offensively, Pedroia was a catalyst for so many great Red Sox offenses. Pedroia was a hit machine as he had the 12th most hits (1,802) from when he debuted in 2006 to when he last played 100+ games in a season (2017). His career OPS+ sits at 113, which is higher than 6 second basemen who find themselves in the Hall of Fame. His career slash line is the following: 299 / .365 / .439. Pedroia was an effective base runner throughout his career as he finished with 138 stolen bases.

Defensively, Pedroia was about as consistent as can be at second base. Pedroia never had more than 7 errors in a single season and always had a fielding percentage of .990 or better. He had 6 seasons with 10+ defensive runs saved and finished with 99 defensive runs saved in his career, which ranks 4th among all second basemen since it became an official stat in 2003. Pedroia has a ridiculous defensive highlight reel that led to 2 Gold Gloves throughout his career.

Pedroia was a walking web gem and had so many big plays in big moments. Pedroia was one of those players that could change the game both offensively and defensively.

When it comes to baseball statistics, every fan has statistics that they prefer over others. There are 2 statistics that I believe must be used when evaluating players for the Hall of Fame and they are WAR and WAR7. These statistics are able to put a value on a player’s production across time periods allowing for easy comparisons. WAR (Wins Above Replacement) presents the number of wins the player adds to the team above what a replacement player produces. A player’s WAR7 is the sum of a player’s WAR over their 7 best seasons.

Dustin Pedroia’s WAR over his 14-year career was 51.9, which ranks 23rd on the all-time second base list. The average WAR for a Hall of Fame second baseman is 69.5. Pedroia has a better career WAR than 7 current Hall of Fame second basemen. The injury cost Pedroia years of opportunities to add to his resumé as Pedroia had a -0.6 WAR in his age 34 and 35 seasons (9 total games) as he was trying to work his way back from his injury. It’s unlikely that Pedroia’s final years of his career would have been enough to push him towards the 69.5 WAR average but I don’t think it’s out of the question that he could have reached 60-65 if he could have played a few more seasons.

Although Pedroia falls a little short when comparing his career WAR, the WAR7 statistic is where Pedroia has a real case. WAR7 is a great statistic because it looks at when a player is at his peak and compares him to other great players at their peak. Pedroia’s WAR7 is 41.0, which ranks 16th on the all-time second base list. The average WAR7 for a Hall of Fame second baseman is 44.4. Pedroia just misses the average but he barely trails some fairly recent elected second basemen. Craig Biggio’s WAR7 was 41.8, just 0.8 above Pedroia’s and Roberto Alomar’s WAR7 was 42.9, just 1.9 above Pedroia. When looking at WAR7, Pedroia has a higher WAR7 than 9 current Hall of Fame second basemen.

The WAR7 statistic clearly shows that when Dustin Pedroia was at the top of his game, he performed like a Hall of Famer. You may be reading this and thinking, “Well you are only looking at 7 years of Pedroia’s career.” And while that is true, Pedroia still had 5 additional productive years before his significant knee injury. When Dustin Pedroia was healthy, he was an extremely productive big leaguer.

How players are evaluated for the Hall of Fame will continue to change. Current players will not have the volume of statistics that past Hall of Fame players were able to accumulate. Just look at starting pitchers. It felt like 200-250 wins were needed to get into Cooperstown about a decade ago. Now, wins aren’t even a main statistic used for evaluating players because current pitchers will be lucky if they crack 100 career wins. Inning totals will be cut in half as well with how early pitchers get pulled. Thinking will have to change for Hall of Fame requirements for pitchers and the same can be said for position players. I think the best way to evaluate players will be looking at their peak years and how they compare to other Hall members’ peak years.

The hope is that Pedroia receives enough votes to stay on the ballot for the voters to continue to review his career over time. According to Ryan Thibodaux who tracks the Hall of Fame ballots, Pedroia has appeared on 12.1% of ballots that have been shared so far (23.5% of ballots have been shared). If that trend continues, Pedroia will have more than enough (at least 5%) to stay on the ballot for next year.

Over time, hopefully the voters will realize that when Pedroia was healthy, he was one of the better players in the sport. He built in an impressive resumé and an injury should not be the reason that keeps Pedroia out of Cooperstown.

In part 2, we will look at how Dustin Pedroia compares to the top second basemen who debuted in the 21st century.