Pick Your Pedroia

The Red Sox have played one game this season. Seems like it’s time to check in on Dustin Pedroia. Before you go, assuming the rest of this is going to be stupid, at the very end there is a poll. Internet readers love polls. Please vote in it only after you at least glance over what’s in between. So: Dustin Pedroia has two home runs!

Already, that says something. Pedroia, last year, hit seven home runs. He went deep twice on Monday against the ace to whom the Red Sox have been most frequently linked in trade rumors. Now, Pedroia wasn’t the only Boston player to go deep, so, maybe it was just one of those days. Yet it wasn’t just that Pedroia homered. It was also how Pedroia homered. His homers looked like classic Pedroia homers, and that’s just the thing.

In the top of the first, Pedroia dug in against Cole Hamels, and he covered a fastball over the inner third:

The pitch was clocked in the low 90s, and, off the bat, it had the familiar Pedroia trajectory. This also resembles the familiar Pedroia screenshot: little guy, swinging a club, putting literally everything he has into the moment of contact.

Later, in the fifth, again against Hamels, Pedroia covered a fastball in a little off the plate, and also higher than the one before:

Pedroia went up and got it, keeping his hands close in. Ignore the yellow dot in the Amica pitch zone — that’s for the pitch before. This wasn’t even a strike, and Pedroia turned it into four bases.

Two fastballs in the low 90s, both in, both elevated, both hit out. This is a skill we’ve all known Pedroia has possessed, but Pedroia hasn’t been the same guy his whole career. There were very real thumb problems in 2013. There were very real wrist problems in 2014. I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know — Pedroia played almost two years through pain, and it seems hardly a coincidence his power numbers fell off. And he most certainly became more vulnerable against fastballs inside.

Last year, especially, against fastballs in, Pedroia hit more balls on the ground than ever before. Also, last year, especially, against fastballs in, Pedroia pulled fewer balls in the air than ever before. There are a million ways you can break things down, but maybe it helps to just stay simple.

Pulling from Baseball Savant: here are Dustin Pedroia’s home runs against pitches in or beyond the inner third, clocked at 90+ miles per hour:

• 2008: 6
• 2009: 5
• 2010: 8
• 2011: 4
• 2012: 9
• 2013: 1
• 2014: 1
• 2015: 2

Don’t even bother worrying about playing-time differences. The takeaway is immediately obvious. On Opening Day, Dustin Pedroia hit two inside fastballs for home runs. That equaled his total from the previous two seasons combined. What that doesn’t necessarily mean is that Pedroia is back to being a moderately-powerful dynamo. What that most definitely is, though, is encouraging, interesting, eyebrow-raising. And this is exactly what Pedroia has been talking about for months.

From the aftermath of the opening game:

“Sometimes you get hurt and try to find a way to play through it,” said Pedroia, “but sometimes you get healthy, too. That’s the way I look at it. I grinded a lot last year and last couple of years. I’m back to being who I am.”

From the middle of winter:

“The ball’s going to go farther,” Pedroia said. “The balls are going 400 feet now (in batting practice). And then, when you add 5 mph (against pitchers), I’m not a chemist or anything, it’s probably going to go 500.”

Pedroia’s been fixed, allegedly, and he’s said it’s night and day. He’s never been anything but extremely confident in himself, and while, overall, you could say that about Pedroia through probably his whole adult life, he’s been open about his belief he’ll hit for power again. He doesn’t think he’s going to match last year’s .098 ISO. Now, here’s something I find interesting: Pedroia was saying these things all offseason. We offer ZiPS, Steamer, and Fan projections.

The Fan projections, usually, end up high, by a matter of percentage points. Fans tend to be optimistic across the board, and while maybe it isn’t actually because of optimism, that’s how things come off. Here are 2015 Pedroia home-run projections:

• ZiPS: 10 dingers
• Steamer: 10
• Fan: 10

Meanwhile, let’s take a look at projected ISO, which you know as SLG – BA:

• ZiPS: .114 ISO
• Steamer: .123
• Fan: .121

The Fan projections have Pedroia pegged for 10 dingers and a .121 ISO. The depth-chart projections, which blend ZiPS and Steamer, have Pedroia pegged for 10 dingers and a .118 ISO. Here’s a very obvious opportunity to be optimistic, and the fans weren’t buying it. They weren’t biting on successful corrective surgery. The fans figure Pedroia will have 2013-level power, but not the power from before, where Pedroia strung together seasons with an ISO around .160 or higher.

The track record:

• 2008: .167 ISO
• 2009: .152
• 2010: .205
• 2011: .167
• 2012: .160
• 2013: .114
• 2014: .098

What this might be is very admirable restraint. Pedroia, after all, is a middle infielder in his early 30s, and in his most recent seasons, he hasn’t been powerful. He certainly doesn’t have the classically powerful build, and he’s always talked a big game so it wasn’t a shock to see him doing it again. Plus, even a healthy Pedroia might be only a temporarily healthy Pedroia. Injuries happen, and he could be sapped once more. Telling the future is hard. There are so many things.

But maybe fans just wanted some evidence. Maybe they were waiting to see Pedroia look like himself before they’d be willing to believe it. The Fan projections take place before the regular season. Mostly, I think, before spring training. Pedroia has done something now. In a real game, against a good pitcher, twice. Makes me wonder.

What do you think now? That’s all I wonder. How much, if at all, has Dustin Pedroia changed your mind? Because Dustin Pedroia definitely hasn’t changed his own mind.