Pumping The Brakes On Joc Pederson

Joc Pederson will very soon be a good everyday player in the Major Leagues. He has big league speed and power, and in the minors he’s hit for average. His strikeout rate is worrisome as he’ll soon face big league pitching (460 in 2,158 minor league plate appearances; a 21.3% clip) but it’s made up for with a 14.2% walk rate and minor league .401 career on-base percentage. He made history with 30 home runs and 30 steals in AAA Albuquerque last season. These are good things.

But – at least for 2015 – let’s pump the brakes on anointing him as the linchpin on which the Dodgers’ season depends. While he’s very young, and will one day be a good player, he will not parallel 2013’s Yasiel Puig with a welcome-to-the-big-leagues breakout this season.

Pederson debuted with the Dodgers in 2014, going 4-for-28 with 11 strikeouts in 38 plate appearances. Now that .143/.351/.143 slash line is a very small sample size, but he did have a 28.9% strikeout rate and only four hits – all of which were singles – in 18 games. But despite his lack of pop, he walked nine times, showing a discerning eye at the top-level in the world.

For the first time adjusting to big league pitching (and for a kid who was only 22!), not hitting in 38 PAs isn’t a big deal. But don’t kid yourselves; if he starts 2015 off as an everyday-or-nearly-everyday center fielder and goes 4-for-28 with 11 strikeouts, you’re going to be less patient.

To speculate how successful Pederson might be in the big leagues in 2015, let’s go back and, best as we can, review his full-season minor league stops:

2014: Everyone hits in AAA Albuquerque
To his credit, Pederson dominated the Pacific Coast League in 2014. He became the first 30-30 guy the league had seen in eight decades, slashed .303/.435/.582 with a mind-blowing 1.017 OPS in 553 PAs, and drew 100 walks in 121 games. Except… everyone did that in Albuquerque.

That’s not quite an exaggeration. The Isotopes – who finished 63-79 with the third-worst winning percentage in the PCL – hit .283/.353/.463 as a team with an absurd OPS of .816. And this is a National League AAA affiliate so, yes, pitchers are included in those hitting statistics, too.

Speaking of pitchers, Albuquerque’s staff held a 5.50 ERA in 2014 while allowing 145 home runs in 142 games. Yikes. And it’s not just Albuquerque; all combined, hitters in the PCL slashed .276/.344/.427 with a .771 OPS in 2014, hitting 2,176 home runs in 20,148 innings. Pitching staffs were taxed, to put it mildly, producing a 4.63 season ERA with a messy 1.453 WHIP. I’ll repeat: everyone hit in the PCL.

Albuquerque has an elevation of 4,900 feet. Baseball people discount the Colorado Rockies’ offense, for example, since their home ballpark sits at 5,280 feet. If that’s the case, we must be skeptical about the ridiculous offensive numbers in Albuquerque, Pederson’s included. (By the way, Pederson hit .278/.402/.591 on the road in 2014, a middle of the road batting average with phenomenal on-base and slugging percentages).

And it’s not just Albuquerque; Colorado Springs (6,035 feet!!), Reno (4,400 feet), Salt Lake (4,206 feet), El Paso (3,800 feet), Oklahoma City (1,201 feet), Omaha (1,090 feet) and Des Moines (1,000 feet) all play at elevations higher than every single Major League city except for Phoenix (1,117 feet) and Denver. The ball flies in the PCL (except Nashville and Memphis, low-elevation locales which, not coincidentally, had the two best team ERAs in the league).

VERDICT: Pederson’s 2014 is a statistical marvel, and he deserves every bit of the accolades he received for becoming the PCL’s first 30-30 guy in 80 years. It takes a special player to do that. But we must take his numbers with a grain of salt; I’d be more concerned with him as a prospect if he wasn’t killing PCL pitching.

2013: AA Chattanooga may have helped left-handed hitters
Pederson played for the Dodgers’ AA affiliate, the Chattanooga Lookouts, in 2013. He hit .278/.381/.497 with 22 home runs, 24 doubles, and 31 stolen bases in 123 games (519 PAs). Chattanooga’s AT&T Field runs 330’ to left field and 325’ to right. While center field (an even 400’) is fairly standard, Pederson’s left-handed power swing no doubt enjoyed the 325’ power alley in right field.

Puig, who played in Chattanooga with Pederson that year, clearly didn’t mind the 330’ fence in left, as he hit 8 home runs and 12 doubles, slugging .599, in just 40 games (167 PAs) before being promoted. The Southern League as a whole in 2013 had a 3.54 ERA, though, so Pederson definitely wasn’t playing in a hitter’s league. However, left-handers did hit 38 of the team’s 101 home runs in 2013 (37.6%), despite only being 6 of 19 Lookouts who had at least 100 PAs (31.5%).

Hell, Chattanooga is such a hitter’s park, the stadium’s street address is 201 Power Alley! (Just kidding. Well, I’m not kidding about the address, it really is 201 Power Alley, but I’m kidding about that being a serious part of my argument).

VERDICT: The porch is definitely short in right field, but Pederson was hitting in a pitcher’s league in 2013. And considering he hit .278/.381/.497 on a team that collectively hit .230/.306/.356, Pederson out-performed his level and earned his slash line.