Dustin Pedroia Blocking Outside Noise: 'My Play Will Speak For Itself'

Go ahead. Talk about this, that and the other thing. Dustin Pedroia doesn’t care.

Pedroia has earned four Gold Glove awards in his 10-year career, yet several defensive metrics pointed to 2015 as a down year from a fielding perspective. The Boston Red Sox second baseman is blocking out the chatter related to such in-depth analysis, though. He’s instead looking at the situation with a wider lens.

“Listen, I’ll go out there and my play will speak for itself,” Pedroia recently told WEEI’s Rob Bradford on the “Bradfo Show” podcast. “I’m to a point where you kind of heard it all. You play in that market for a long time and you understand that one game you go 0-for-4 and you stink, and the next game you go 4-for-4 and you’re the best player ever.

“I was having my best year of my career (in 2015) until I got hurt. I don’t listen to any of what this says or what that says. Shoot, the year before I think it was one of the best defensive metrics for a second baseman. And the year after it was terrible? Come on.”

Pedroia won his fourth Gold Glove in 2014 despite posting career-worst numbers across the board offensively. He saved 17 runs and had a career-best 18.3 Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR).

But 2015 was a grind. Pedroia played in just 93 games because of a hamstring injury, and while he returned to form offensively when healthy, his defense suffered. He actually was a below-average defender, according to several metrics, including defensive runs saved (negative-3).

“I don’t put too much stock into those kind of things,” said Pedroia, who made it perfectly clear on Bradford’s podcast that he doesn’t care about defensive metrics. “Don’t worry, I’m going to be ready to play baseball and be healthy and do all the things that I’ve always done. I don’t need anybody to motivate me.

“I’m to the point now where people say bad things, or people question me, that’s great. I hear it, but that’s not my job to go in the locker room and yell at that person. My job is to help the Red Sox win games, and I’m going to do that.”

The Red Sox won just 78 games in 2015 en route to their second straight last-place finish (third in four seasons). They’ll need Pedroia to stay healthy and productive to bounce back in 2016, and the four-time All-Star sounds ready to accept the challenge.

Just don’t bring up UZR or any of that other stuff.