Joc Pederson makes early impact at plate for Arizona Diamondbacks
CINCINNATI — As his production continued to lag last season, one of Joc Pederson’s teammates with the San Francisco Giants made a comment that stuck with him.
“Michael Conforto came up to me and said, ‘Dude,’ I’ve never seen a guy hit the ball so hard,’” Pederson recalled, “‘and constantly get out.’”
Six weeks into a new season with a new team, Pederson is again hitting balls hard. Only this time, he has the results to show for it. After collecting three hits, including a solo homer, as his Diamondbacks team swept the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday, Pederson owns a robust .302/.415/.535 line with eight doubles and four homers in 107 plate appearances, nearly all of them coming against right-handed pitching.
Thus far, he has been the Diamondbacks’ most impactful offseason acquisition. Left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez has not yet pitched due to injury. Third baseman Eugenio Suarez is off to a middling start. Lefty Jordan Montgomery was thrown well, but Pederson, who got a one-year, $12.5 million guarantee from the Diamondbacks in January, has been the bigger difference-maker.
“He’s a student of the game,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “He pays attention. He’s got a lot of weapons and he knows how to use them.”
That was less obvious a year ago, at least going by his surface stats. In 2022, Pederson put together a productive year, posting an .874 OPS and prompting the Giants to give him the $19.6 million qualifying offer, which he accepted. His production fell off in his second season in San Francisco; he managed only a .764 OPS.
As Conforto intimated, Pederson might have been unlucky. Advanced metrics, at least, seem to corroborate that theory. Pederson posted above-average or better marks in most categories that took his batted ball data into consideration. His expected stats were all higher than his actuals, including batting average (expected: .264, actual: .335) and slugging (expected: .481, actual: .416).
Pederson said the experience was not a fun one to go through.
“Anytime you do a ‘sbunt’ — which is when you swing hard and you hit it down the third base line, like a swinging bunt, you know — or a blooper or a broken-bat hit, you feel really good,” he said. “And then if you hit a ball really hard and they catch it, you don’t feel good. Even though they would say you do the hard-hit balls way better, you should feel better after that, but you don’t.”
Pederson, who has only served as a designated hitter or pinch-hitter, is experiencing the opposite sort of luck this year, outperforming his expected numbers. Though he has been productive over the past week or two, he made it sound like he hasn’t been overly pleased with the way some of his at-bats have been going. That said, he is trying not to get too caught up in the results, knowing how fickle they can be.
“So much changes day by day, week to week,” Pederson said. “I come to the field, prepare for the pitcher, do my best to swing at my pitch, give him his pitch, and at the end of the day, if it’s three strikeouts, three hits, continue to come tomorrow and not put too much into that. That’s when it’s easy to chase your tail and just make it worse on yourself. I’m still learning a lot in the game.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Joc Pederson making early impact at plate for DBacks
