2025 Season in Review: Joc Pederson

With the 2025 Texas Rangers season having come to an end, we shall be, over the course of the offseason, taking a look at every player who appeared in a major league game for the Texas Rangers in 2025.

Today we are looking at designated hitter Joc Pederson.

You probably don’t want to think about Joc Pederson’s 2025 season. I know I don’t. Joc Pederson probably doesn’t want to, either.

Or you do want to think about it, but only to rage about it, and how the Texas Rangers never should have signed him.

Look, I wasn’t enthused about the signing, either. But then, I wasn’t enthused about signing Nathan Eovaldi after the 2022 season, and look how that turned out.

The idea was that Pederson would mash against righthanded pitchers and would provide good vibes and everything would be good.

Things were not, of course, good, as far as Joc Pederson’s 2025 season went. Far from it.

There was the 0 for 41 streak in April that messed things up. And you know, part of what that streak so brutal — aside from the fact that it was an 0 for 41 streak, which is historically bad — is that he wasn’t walking, either. He had three walks in that stretch. Walks are one of the things that Joc Pederson was supposed to be doing good.

Also making it worse was that Pederson wasn’t tearing it up before the hitless streak. Through April 2, a seven game span, Joc was hitting only .158/.273/.211 on the season. The 0 for 41 streak started during that April 2 game, after he had recorded a hit in the game. After the 41st hitless at bat in a row, Pederson’s slash line on the season was .052/141/.069.

Imagine coming up to the plate and having to see that line on the scoreboard.

Pederson also missed two months with an injury. One would like to think that his overall season line — .181/.285/.328 — would have been better if he hadn’t missed those two months, that he would have put up a better slash line than that in that two month period. One would like to think that.

Part of what is so weird about Pederson’s 2025 season is that his K rate was in line with previous seasons. His walk rate was in line with previous seasons. His hard hit rate was in line with previous seasons. His barrel percentage was down, but not so much you’d expect to see the sort of cratering Pederson experienced.

He did have a very large spread between his wOBA (.276) and his xwOBA (.315), though he’s also very slow, which can contribute to that. That .315 xwOBA is still the lowest of his career. His .203 BABIP was the second lowest of his career, trailing only 2020, when he slashed .190/.285/.397 in 43 games for the Dodgers in the pandemic season.

I feel like I should go do a deep dive and get a better handle on what went wrong with Pederson in 2025. It would just depress me though. So I’m not gonna do that.

Previously: