{"id":20295,"date":"2019-05-31T06:43:32","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T10:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=20295"},"modified":"2019-05-31T06:47:08","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T10:47:08","slug":"joc-pederson-the-overlooked-star-on-los-angeles-dodgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/05\/31\/joc-pederson-the-overlooked-star-on-los-angeles-dodgers\/","title":{"rendered":"Joc Pederson the Overlooked Star on Los Angeles Dodgers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In case you hadn\u2019t noticed, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/StatsBySTATS\/status\/1133979955019358208\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> outfielder\u00a0<strong>Cody Bellinger<\/strong> is going absolutely nuts this year. The lefty leads the league in average, slugging, wRC+, and fWAR, and he\u2019s a major reason for the Dodgers\u2019 .667 win percentage. However, one player cannot do it alone in baseball, and fellow outfielder <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/pederjo01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joc Pederson<\/a><\/strong> has been a fantastic Robin to Bellinger\u2019s Batman. The slugging leadoff hitter is among the best in baseball and deserves more appreciation for his career year.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Joc Pederson Having a Quietly Effective Season<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>With Bellinger breaking records left and right, it\u2019s easy to overlook the fact that Joc Pederson made history last night. Pederson launched his 16<sup>th<\/sup> home run from the leadoff spot in Thursday\u2019s 2-0 win over the New York Mets. In doing so, he became the first player in National League history to hit 16 leadoff home runs before the month of June.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Joc Pederson&#39;s 16 home runs out of the leadoff spot are the most in National League history prior to the start of June in a season.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Dodgers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Dodgers<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LABleedsBlue?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#LABleedsBlue<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OptaSTATS\/status\/1133979955019358208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 30, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not just his penchant for power which makes him such a valuable part of the team. The lefty has developed into one of the best all-around players in baseball, and his efficiency at the plate and in the field is evident everywhere you look. As of this posting, Pederson owns a .268\/.372\/.647 slash line with a 165 wRC+ and a .416 wOBA. His wRC+ and wOBA are both good for the eighth-best marks in the league. Pederson isn\u2019t just one of the Dodgers\u2019 best hitters, he\u2019s one of the best hitters in all of baseball.<\/p>\n<p>WAR isn\u2019t the be-all, end-all statistic, but it\u2019s hard to ignore just how good Pederson\u2019s been relative to the rest of the league. Despite not bringing anything special as a fielder or baserunner, Pederson is already worth 2.0 wins, according to Fangraphs. This fWAR ties him for 20<sup>th<\/sup>-best in the league, and he\u2019s easily on pace to shatter his career marks.<\/p>\n<p>Entering the season, Pederson recorded a career-high 3.5 fWAR in 2016 while playing in 148 games. His 128 wRC+ made him an above-average hitter and he actually graded out well as a fielder. He\u2019s on pace to shatter both marks this season, and his .240 BABIP suggests that he could actually improve his numbers as the season goes on.<\/p>\n<h3>How Pederson Affects the Dodgers<\/h3>\n<p>The Dodgers have the best record in the National League, but this isn\u2019t a new sensation by any means. Los Angeles has been the best team in the NL for quite some time, making it to each of the last two World Series. However, they\u2019ve fallen short both times to the Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros.<\/p>\n<p>However, this Dodgers team could be the one to finally take home a title. Bellinger is playing at a ridiculous level, but the rest of the team is providing the support needed to be one of the most intimidating rosters in the league. With Joe Pederson performing like a top-10 hitter complemented by solid play from <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/turneju01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Justin Turner<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/verdual01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alex Verdugo<\/a><\/strong>, this team has never looked better. It\u2019s obviously early, but perhaps this is the Dodgers team destined to break LA\u2019s championship drought.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"iXHaUWwFRG1cBVRlmJMpwA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1146667000\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'iXHaUWwFRG1cBVRlmJMpwA',sig:'RgrnOR7Tpu2iSd1Ha3DYMxznmtgq99lWC3QfhJS-nMc=',w:'594px',h:'369px',items:'1146667000',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Los Angeles Dodgers&#8217; outfielder Joc Pederson is having the best season of his young career and is a major reason for LA&#8217;s success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":20297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,2],"tags":[68,899,423,92,69],"class_list":["post-20295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dodgers","category-featured","tag-baseball","tag-cody-bellinger","tag-joc-pederson","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}