Dustin Pedroia
The most underrated aspect of Pedroia's career? He was basically league-average offensively for his entire 14-year run, yet became one of the most valuable second basemen of his generation. That career 98 OPS+ tells the story — his bat was never special, but his glove and grit made him indispensable.
His 2011 peak shows what made him dangerous when everything clicked. That .307/.387/.474 slash line with 21 homers represents the perfect blend of his contact skills and surprising pop for a 5-foot-9 frame. Four Gold Gloves speak to his defensive mastery, turning routine plays into art at second base.
Pedroia's legacy lives in the gap between perception and production. Boston fans remember a scrappy champion, but the numbers reveal something more nuanced — a defensively elite player whose offensive contributions were more about consistency than excellence. His MVP award in 2008 came during a career year that looks modest by today's standards.
Career · Batting
14 seasons| Year | Team | G | AB | HR | RBI | AVG | OPS | OPS+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | BOS | 31 | 89 | 2 | 7 | .191 | .561 | 73 |
| 2007 | BOS | 139 | 520 | 8 | 50 | .317 | .823 | 109 |
| 2008 | BOS | 157 | 653 | 17 | 83 | .326 | .869 | 116 |
| 2009 | BOS | 154 | 626 | 15 | 72 | .296 | .819 | 109 |
| 2010 | BOS | 75 | 302 | 12 | 41 | .288 | .860 | 118 |
| 2011 | BOS | 159 | 635 | 21 | 91 | .307 | .861 | 120 |
| 2012 | BOS | 141 | 563 | 15 | 65 | .290 | .797 | 110 |
| 2013 | BOS | 160 | 641 | 9 | 84 | .301 | .787 | 110 |
| 2014 | BOS | 135 | 551 | 7 | 53 | .278 | .712 | 102 |
| 2015 | BOS | 93 | 381 | 12 | 42 | .291 | .797 | 110 |
| 2016 | BOS | 154 | 633 | 15 | 74 | .318 | .825 | 112 |
| 2017 | BOS | 105 | 406 | 7 | 62 | .293 | .760 | 101 |
| 2018 | BOS | 3 | 11 | 0 | 0 | .091 | .322 | 44 |
| 2019 | BOS | 6 | 20 | 0 | 1 | .100 | .243 | 32 |
| Career | 1512 | 6031 | 140 | 725 | .299 | — | — | |
Every ball this hitter has put in play — how hard it left the bat, and at what angle. The red field behind the dots shows how much damage that kind of contact does, league-wide: the darker the red, the better things go for the hitter.
The field — league-average xwOBA (what a batted ball is typically worth: 0.0 is a sure out, ~2.0 a sure home run) for every exit-velocity × launch-angle combination, measured from 1.3 million regular-season balls in play since 2015. The dark ridge — balls hit 105+ mph at 25–30° — is the barrel zone, where contact becomes near-automatic extra bases.
The dots — this hitter’s career regular-season balls in play, grouped to a fine grid; a bigger dot means more batted balls at that exact combination. Dots piled onto the red ridge are damage; dots low on the pale field are weak or mishit contact. Spring training and the postseason are excluded.
Matchups, projections, comps — grounded in Lahman, Retrosheet, and Statcast.