Dustin Pedroia Retires: Will he Make the Hall of Fame?

For over 12 years, second baseman Dustin Pedroia was the heart and soul of the Boston Red Sox. In 2018, however, as the club won a team-record 108 games and ultimately the World Series, Pedroia was limited to playing the role of cheerleader and coach. Pedroia, who had surgery on his left knee after the 2017 season, came back too soon, playing three games in May, and was unable to take to the diamond for the rest of the season. Continued complications from that balky knee limited him to just 6 games in 2019 and none played in 2020. Today, the 37-year old Pedroia announced his retirement from Major League Baseball.

Pedroia is the only player ever to earn Rookie of the Year, Gold Glove, and MVP awards along with a World Series championship in his first two full seasons. Only nine other players have accomplished those feats in their entire career. He finished his career with a .299 batting average, having dipped below the .300 mark by going just 2 for 20 in his abbreviated final campaign.

Pedroia had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in October 2016, a result of a torn meniscus from an injury sustained in a game in Toronto the month before. The following April, in Baltimore, Pedroia’s knee was injured further when the Orioles’ Manny Machado apparently spiked him in a slide at second base. That play was a contributing factor to the injury that limited Pedroia to 89 of the team’s final 145 games in 2017.

After the ’17 season, the Sox second sacker had cartilage restoration surgery on the knee, a surgery that he now regrets having. Other rehabilitation options were available but he opted instead for the complicated surgery, a graft in which, he says, “you’re putting somebody else’s bone in your body.” Pedroia was expected to miss the first two months of the 2018 season and did come back on May 26 but, in retrospect, he returned far too soon.

All told, Pedroia appeared in just 9 games combined in the 2018-20 seasons. Now that he’s officially retired (having played his last game in 2019), Pedroia will be eligible for the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) ballot for the Hall of Fame in January 2025. After a brief recap of Pedey’s 14-year MLB career, I’ll tackle the question about whether he accomplished enough on the diamond to deserve to have a plaque with his image lasered upon it in baseball’s historical shrine in Cooperstown, New York.

Cooperstown Cred: Dustin Pedroia (2B)

• Boston Red Sox (2006-2018)
• Career: .299 BA, .365 OBP, .439 SLG, 140 HR, 725 RBI, 1,805 Hits
• Career: 113 OPS+, 51.6 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 4-time Gold Glove Award Winner
• 4-time All-Star
• 2008 A.L. MVP (.326 BA, 17 HR, 83 RBI, 118 Runs, 213 Hits, 54 doubles)
• Member of 2007 and 2013 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox

(cover photo: Tony Avelar/Associated Press)

This piece was originally posted in March 2019. It has been updated with the news of Pedroia’s retirement.

Dustin Pedroia Career Highlights

Dustin Luis Pedroia was born on August 17, 1983, in Woodland, California, near Sacramento. Playing at Woodland High School, Pedroia did not strike out one time in his senior season while hitting .445.

Pedroia attended Arizona State University and, as a freshman, beat out sophomore Ian Kinsler to be the team’s starting shortstop, which caused Kinsler to transfer to the University of Missouri for his junior year. Kinsler, of course, was also a star second baseman in the American League and was ultimately Pedroia’s replacement in Boston for the team’s title run in 2018. (Kinsler retired after the 2019 season and will also be on the 2025 Hall of Fame ballot).

After hitting .384 in three years at ASU, Pedroia was drafted in the second round of the 2004 draft by the Red Sox. Pedroia played both shortstop and second base in three minor league seasons. The Sox were enticed by Pedroia’s extra-base power, lack of strikeouts, and “off the charts” makeup. Boston General Manager Theo Epstein said, as reported by Sports Illustrated‘s Tom Verducci, “it was pretty clear he loved the game, was not afraid and was a big-time baseball rat.”

Rookie of the Year

Dustin Pedroia made his Major League debut 26 months after being drafted and five days after his 23rd birthday, in August 2006. He hit just .191 in 89 at bats but, nonetheless, was awarded the team’s starting second base job in 2007. The right-handed-hitting second sacker got off to a slow start in ’07 (hitting just .182 in 20 games in April) before hitting his stride. For the last five months of the ’07 campaign, the rookie hit .333 with a .856 OPS.

Besides warming up with the bat, Pedroia impressed Red Sox fans with his defensive ability and all-out, get-the-uniform-dirty style of play. On September 1, he helped preserve the no-hitter of fellow rookie Clay Buchholz with this diving stab and throw on a ball that seemed destined to break up the no-no.

Ultimately, with a .317 average, a .380 on-base%, 112 OPS+, and 3.9 WAR, Pedroia was the A.L. Rookie of the Year. To put a cherry on top of his rookie campaign, the Red Sox won the 2007 World Series. On the way to the title, the Sox were down 3 games to 1 to the Cleveland Indians in the ALCS. The team, however, blew out the Tribe, outscoring them 30-to-4 in Games 5-7.

Pedroia certainly did his part: he hit .538 with 5 RBI and a 1.600 OPS in those three tilts. In Game 7, with the team clinging to a 3-2 lead, Pedroia launched a laser over the Green Monster to lead the Sox to the Fall Classic.

A Consistent Star Player: 2008-2013

In 2008, his sophomore campaign, the 5’8″, 165-pound Dustin Pedroia had a career-best season. He hit .323 while leading the American League with 213 hits and 118 runs scored. He was voted MVP of the A.L. while also winning the first of his four Gold Gloves. Displaying unlikely power for a player of his physical stature, Pedroia hit 17 home runs (with 83 RBI) and led the majors with 54 doubles. In addition, he stole 20 bases while getting caught just once.

Pedroia, who dubbed himself the “Laser Show” starting back in his college days, would never come close to another MVP but he was a consistent two-way threat with his bat and glove. After being limited to 75 games in 2010 thanks to breaking his foot on a foul ball, Pedroia returned in 2011 to have arguably his best season; he slashed .307/.387/.474 while establishing career highs in home runs (21), RBI (91), OPS+ (131), Defensive Runs Saved (18), and WAR (8.0).

The 2013 World Series and Beyond

Overall, in his first seven full MLB seasons, Dustin Pedroia hit .305 with a 118 OPS+ and an average WAR of 5.6 per season. In 2013, the Red Sox returned to the Fall Classic, with Pedroia leading the team in WAR in the regular season (6.1). In the postseason the Sox hitting biggest star was, as usual, David Ortiz. Still, Pedroia flashed the leather in the World Series. This diving stop kept a run off the board in Game 2; FOX analyst Tim McCarver called Pedroia the “most creative” second baseman in the game.

The 2013 campaign was Pedroia’s last as an All-Star. In 2014, even in an off-season offensively by his standards (99 OPS+), the now 30-year old Pedroia led the team in WAR (4.7). In 2015, Pedey was limited to 93 games due to a persistent hamstring injury. Also, for the first time, one of the metrics that track defensive prowess, Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), ranked him as below average with the glove.

Pedroia had a renaissance campaign in 2016. Healthy for the first time in years, he played in 154 games, posting a robust .318/.376/.449 slash line (117 OPS+) along with 201 hits, 105 runs scored, and a 5.4 WAR.

As we’ve documented, Pedroia’s 2017 season was marred by the Machado slide on April 21st. Even at less than 100% health, he played in 105 games but at less than normal Dustin Pedroia standards. Offensively, he was barely above average with a 101 OPS+; defensively, he was credited with -2 DRS. This translated to a 2.5 WAR, the lowest of his career since his pre-rookie 2006 cup of coffee. 2018 and 2019, as we’ve seen, were lost seasons (9 games played in too) and Pedroia did not play in 2020.

Dustin Pedroia’s Hall of Fame Credentials

Considering that he only played 11 full seasons (2007-17) and finished with just 6,777 career plate appearances, Dustin Pedroia’s Hall of Fame case will by necessity be based on his peak performance and accomplishments, not upon having reached landmark career numbers.

Let’s start with the good news. By the “eye” test, Pedroia makes it. He was a gritty player, a great fielder who got his uniform dirty diving for balls, the kind of player you want to be in the Hall.

Pedroia has the reputation, backed by four Gold Gloves and modern metrics, of being a superb defensive player.

As a hitter, early in his career, the “Laser Show” offered elite offensive production for a middle infielder. If you exclude his injury-shortened 2010 campaign, Pedroia averaged .306 with 14 HR, 74 RBI, 186 hits, 99 runs, and 18 stolen bases from 2007-13. Pedey averaged over 150 games played per campaign during those six seasons.

If you take his seven best seasons (by WAR), he ranks 16th in history among all second basemen, behind 12 Hall of Famers, Bobby Grich, Chase Utley, and Robinson Cano. Using Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system (which combines career WAR and best-7 WAR), Pedroia is ranked 20th, behind 13 Hall of Famers and ahead of 7 others. It should be noted that the 7 Hall of Fame second sackers behind Pedroia on this list, none were voted into the Hall by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA); all were Veterans Committee choices.

Comparison to other Second Basemen

Thanks to superior fielding metrics, Dustin Pedroia has a career WAR of 51.6. If he were to be judged in comparison to players from the first half of the 20th century, that would put him above the bar. Not that anyone who ever voted for a player from that era had ever heard of the statistic, but there are literally only six position players who debuted between 1871-1949 with a WAR above 51.6 who are not in the Hall of Fame. One of those six (Shoeless Joe Jackson) is out because of his role in the Black Sox scandal.

However, if you take players who debuted in 1950 or later and are currently eligible for the Hall of Fame (meaning they’ve been retired 5 or more years), there are 45 position players with a WAR better than Pedroia’s 51.6 who are waiting for the Hall call. Four of them (Grich, Lou Whitaker, Willie Randolph, and Jeff Kent) are second basemen. Three others (still active or recently retired) are also above 51.6: Cano, Utley, and Ian Kinsler, Pedey’s one-time college teammate.

When it comes time to assess Pedroia’s Hall of Fame worthiness, he will be on the ballot with those peers. So how do the four second sackers stack up against each other?

WP Table Builder

Cano clearly reigns supreme statistically but he will be forever tainted by his two suspensions for Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs), the most recent of which will cause him to miss the entire 2021 campaign. Against Utley and Kinsler, Pedey clearly has the advantage in pure hitting (BA/OBP) but the others showed more power and speed.

The Components of WAR and Career Accolades

Next, let’s look at how these four compare in the various components of WAR and career accolades. The components of WAR, if you’re not familiar with them, are fairly self-explanatory. RBat, for instance, refers to “runs above or below average due to hitting.”

HOFm = Bill James Hall of Fame monitor (from the 2019 Bill James Handbook)

WP Table Builder

You can see here that Utley and Kinsler rate ahead of Pedroia in WAR because of superior defensive and base-running metrics. When it comes to base-running, I’m buying the numbers. Utley stole 154 bases and was only caught 22 times in his career for an incredible 87.5% success rate. Kinsler has swiped 243 bases in his career, compared to Pedroia’s 138.

When it comes to defense, the metrics are still evolving. Clearly, Utley, Kinsler, and Pedroia were all superior defensive players in their primes. Was Pedroia the “worst” of those three? I have my doubts. I haven’t studied Kinsler’s defensive metrics closely but, regarding Utley, his numbers were off the charts great for a few years due to superior positioning.

Anyway, the last column (HOFm) is the updated Bill James Hall of Fame monitor. The monitor measures benchmark statistics and accolades on a scale in which 100 indicates the break-even point for a Hall of Famer. By this metric, Utley, Kinsler, and Pedroia are all currently below the bar. It should be noted that James says that his HOF monitor indicates whether a player will make the Hall, not whether they should. When it comes to the HOF monitor, Pedroia’s MVP and Rookie of the Year Award are positive factors that Utley and Kinsler don’t have.

The Counting Stats Problem

Dustin Pedroia has a problem that does not augur well for a future Hall of Fame plaque. It’s a counting stats problem, one that is shared by both Utley and Kinsler. None of the three players has 2,000 career hits. After his final season (with the San Diego Padres), Kinsler retired with exactly 1,999.

Why do 2,000 hits matter?

The answer is that not a single position player who made their MLB debut in 1948 or later has been elected to the Hall of Fame with fewer than 2,000 hits. The stars who debuted between 1871 and 1947 were not held to such a high standard; a whopping 33 have plaques in Cooperstown despite accumulating fewer than 2,000 knocks. 23 of them have a career WAR lower than Pedroia’s 51.6.

Comparison to Kirby Puckett

Whenever a player’s career ends prematurely due to injury, the inevitable question comes up as to whether that player’s career can be considered analogous to Kirby Puckett’s. The popular center fielder for the Minnesota Twins was forced to retire before the 1996 season due to retinal vein occlusion that caused him to lose vision in his right eye. (Puckett passed away in March 2006).

There are many similarities between Pedroia and Puckett.

• Puckett played 12 seasons in MLB; Pedroia played in 14 campaigns but with only 34 plate appearances in his final 2.
• Both players spent their entire careers in one city.
• Both players won two World Series championships (Pedroia has a third ring as a member of the 2018 Red Sox, but did not play in that postseason).

Pedroia has some hardware that Puckett doesn’t: a Rookie of the Year and MVP trophy but Puckett has 2 more Gold Gloves and 6 more All-Star appearances.

Puckett, because of defensive metrics that indicate that he might not have deserved 6 Gold Gloves, finished his career with a 51.1 WAR (Wins Above Replacement), a tick below Pedroia’s 51.6. Puckett has the advantage of having finished his career with 2,304 hits and a .318 batting average (compared to Pedey’s 1,805 hits and .299 BA).

What they specifically have in common is that their careers were cut short due to injury. With Puckett, it was sudden. With Pedroia, it was a balky knee, further damaged by a Manny Machado slide and a surgery gone wrong, that wrecked his final three seasons, ones in which he could have otherwise padded his career statistics to put them closer to the Hall of Fame zone.

Should Hall of Fame Writers Give Credit to Time Missed?

Generally, Hall of Fame voters will take into account a player’s time missed due to military service or player strikes but don’t give credit to players for time missed due to injury. In the future, the 102 games that all players missed in 2020 due to COVID-19 will likely be taken into account when Hall of Fame candidacies are considered.

Injuries are different. Staying healthy and on the diamond is part of the job. Certainly, we can’t put every player who looked like a Hall of Famer into Cooperstown because of time lost on the disabled list.

In Puckett’s case, however, it’s pretty clear that the writers did give some credit for time missed due to his eye injury. Puckett was a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2001. The same writers who made the late Phil Niekro and Don Sutton wait five years for their plaques put the popular Twins’ center fielder into Cooperstown on the first try.

It is, in my opinion, legitimate to consider whether a player was “almost” a Hall of Famer at the time of a career-ending injury. A significant majority of Hall of Fame players don’t perform at a Hall-worthy level throughout their entire careers. Most have a significant peak and then hang around until their late 30s or early 40s to pad their statistics. Puckett didn’t get to pad his stats. If he had had the opportunity, he could have easily surpassed 3,000 hits. That’s what the writers saw.

How will Pedroia fare in 2025? I think there’s virtually no chance that he is a first-ballot selection but think he’ll last for his full years of eligibility on the BBWAA ballot. There will be a lot of debate about the relative merits of Pedroia, Utley, and Kinsler as to who was the best “clean” second sacker of the first 15 years of the 21st century.

To me, Pedroia is a Hall of Famer but, considering he was one of my favorite players as a Red Sox fan, I will acknowledge some bias in the matter.

Will Dustin Pedroia Make the Hall of Fame?

In March 2019, when he was attempting a comeback, I ran a poll on Twitter, asking baseball fans whether they felt Pedroia was likely to make the Hall of Fame.

Clearly, there were a lot of pessimists.

It’s pretty obvious to me that, by current Cooperstown standards, Pedroia’s numbers are a bit lacking.

However, there’s something else to consider. Even if Pedroia’s career statistics fall shy of the standards that will attract 75% of the vote from the BBWAA voters, he’s the kind of player that future versions of the Veterans Committee might like a lot. Besides his rings and accolades, he’s the type of player for whom other players have immense respect.

Let’s not forget as well that future Veterans Committee members might include former teammates, managers, and GMs such as David Ortiz, Terry Francona, and Theo Epstein.

Why Red Sox Fans Love Dustin Pedroia

Finally, as someone who has rooted for the Boston Red Sox since 1975 and would love to see Dustin Pedroia make it into the Hall of Fame one day, I’d like to share a couple of paragraphs from Sports Illustrated‘s Tom Verducci in a piece he authored in 2011. In his article “The Muddy Chicken Hits it Big,” the great writer summed up the essence of Pedroia perfectly at the open of his piece.

Kelli and Dustin Pedroia and their cheeky two-year-old son, Dylan, live across the street from Fenway Park, and one reason why is clear from the view out their 13th-floor windows. Fenway in the quiet morn, before the sausages sizzle and the pilgrims parade in wearing the liturgical garments of Red Sox Nation, sits below them like an unopened Tiffany box, all neat, pristine corners and possibilities. The Pedroias can see the centerfield scoreboard and, through a crack in the asymmetrical grandstand, first base. They also can spy a large chain-link gate on wheels, which sometime in the middle of the day will be rolled open to Red Sox personnel for the symbolic start of the baseball business day.

Kelli will catch her little guy pulling the drapes aside and checking the status of the gate. Is it open? How about now? Now? “It’s ridiculous,” she says. “He paces until it’s open. He’s not calm until he’s at the ballpark.”

And at last when his surveillance is rewarded—the gates swinging open six, seven hours before the game is scheduled to begin—the little guy is happy, for he knows it is finally time to go out and play. He is out the door and across the street in no time.

Dustin Pedroia even takes Dylan with him sometimes.

— Tom Verducci (Sports Illustrated, August 15, 2011)

Thanks for reading. I’m not Tom Verducci but I write a lot about the Hall of Fame. I invite you to follow me on Twitter @cooperstowncred.

Embed from Getty Images