Dustin Pedroia 2011 projection:
AB AVG OBP SLG OPS HR R RBI SB
644 .300 .373 .477 .850 15 112 76 21
Pedroia was on his way to another fine season when a broken foot cut things short. In only 75 games, Pedroia hit 12 home runs and stole nine bases. His season line of .288/.367/.493 should improve given full health, which looks to be the case heading into the new year.
As you can see from the projection, I’m not concerned at all about Pedroia’s AVG and OBP. He continued to show great line drive skills in 2010 (22.2 percent line-drive rate) and draw walk in over 10 percent of his plate appearances. The biggest question will be the sustainability of his home run rate. His 25.2 AB/HR rate in 2010 was the highest of his career, as was his 11.4 percent HR/FB rate. Then again, both of these stats have been far from consistent, jumping up and down from year-to-year. Most of his home run damage last season came in April, where he hit six homers and had a HR/FB rate of 18.8 percent. That HR/FB rate was the highest of his career for a single month. Given the spike in AB/HR and HR/FB rates, I am projecting a regression in home run rate in 2011.
The projection for 21 stolen bases is based on early reports that Pedroia’s foot should be 100 percent by spring training. Heck, he’s healthy enough to sprint through an airport, so running 90 feet shouldn’t be too much of an issue. As inconsistent as his home run rates have been, his stolen base totals have been extremely consistent.
All-in-all, Pedroia is a pretty safe player to project. He takes consistent skills to the plate and works insanely hard to get everything he can out of his talent. It’ll be exciting to see what type of runs scored numbers he can put up hitting in front of the superstar additions of Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez in 2011.
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