This Monday the Baseball Hall of Fame will unveil its ballot for the upcoming 2025 class, and this year’s newcomers include some of the greatest players of the 21st century. Among the headliners are Ichiro Suzuki, who should easily cruise into Cooperstown on the first ballot, and C.C.
Sabathia, one of the most decorated starting pitchers of his generation. But perhaps the most interesting newcomer is one who has little chance of earning induction this year, if ever. Former Red Sox great Dustin Pedroia will be on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time, and his candidacy is complicated.
Few would dispute his place as one of the most impactful second basemen of the modern era, but his career was also cut short by injuries, preventing him from reaching the career benchmarks that usually serve as requirements to reach Cooperstown. How he fares, and to what extent voters take those injuries into account, will tell us a lot about how much emphasis the current electorate places on peak performance versus longevity. Pedroia was a four-time All-Star, a four-time Gold Glove winner, a two-time World Series champion and a Silver Slugger winner.
He won Rookie of the Year in 2007, followed that up with an MVP season in 2008 and finished top-10 in the MVP vote twice more later on. He also compiled 51.9 wins above replacement for his career, which ranks 19th all-time among players who played 75% of their games at second base, and over 10 seasons between 2007-16 he averaged 5.
1 WAR per s.