Los Angeles Dodgers: Five players that deserve more credit in 2018

Joc Pederson – CF

It’s Opening Day. Dodger Stadium is loud, really loud. Clayton Kershaw is on the mound facing the San Diego Padres. Yangervis Solarte starts the scoring with a single to left, that scores Wil Myers. The Dodgers fall behind in the first inning of the game.

In the second inning, Joc Pederson hits a sac fly to right, scoring Adrian Gonzalez. The game is tied. A tie game, though, wasn’t good enough for the Dodgers, and it wasn’t good enough for Pederson. In the 3rd, Pederson steps up to the plate for his second at-bat of the game. The bases are loaded.

He hits it out.

In that moment, Joc Pederson found himself running the bases after hitting the first home run of the season for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Pederson didn’t have the best season of his career this past year. He was on the DL for a bit, and he only hit 11 homers. We can’t focus on that, though. All players have slow years and all players get stuck in slumps. He’ll bounce back.

I’m not thinking about the 11 homers he hit in the regular season, I’m thinking about the three that he hit in the postseason, including one in Game six of the World Series. Pederson didn’t hit many homers, but of the ones he did hit, they always seemed to mean something.

Would you rather have a player hit 25 homers, but have most of them be when their team is down 10-2, or already out of postseason contention? Or do you want a player who will hit grand slams on Opening Day and homers in the World Series?

For me, it’s not even a question.