Carlos Pena Going Forward

Draw more walks, hit more home runs.

Sounds like a pretty good formula for success, does it not? After all, that is the exact formula Carlos Pena used in 2007 to win the American League Comeback Player of the Year award.

The funny thing about that formula is that it is so simple. Usually, when looking at a season where a player drastically improved you can point to several things he improved upon that led to his newfound success.

There are usually many factors that come together to produce a players breakout/career year. For example, you might find that a player drew more walks, struck out less, hit more line drives, had a higher batting average on balls in play, and hit more ground balls to contribute to his improvement.

Not with Carlos Pena though. He only did two things significantly better to improve…and what an improvement it was!

In 2007 he set career highs in HR (46), BA (.282), OBP (.411), SLG (.627), OPS (1.038), Hits (138), Doubles (29), RBI (121), and BB (103).

What led to all of this improvement? Go back and read the first line of this article.

Let’s take a look at some stats of Pena’s through 2006, compared with those same stats in the 2007 season:

PA/HR: 22.37 thru 2006, 13.3 in 2007

Here is an obvious, large improvement. Pena hit a HR once every 22 plate appearances through 2006, then exploded to hit one every 13 plate appearances in 2007.

PA/K: 3.83 thru 2006, 4.31 in 2007

Yeah, Pena stuck out a little less in 2007, but not by a significant amount. He pretty much struck out once every four plate appearances through 2006, and in 2007.

PA/BB: 9.21 thru 2006, 5.94 in 2007

Here’s another significant improvement in 2007. After only walking once every 9 plate appearances through 2006, he walked once every six in 2007.

GB%: 38.11 thru 2006, 37.46 in 2007

In 2007 Pena hit a tad less ground balls, but not by much at all.

FB%: 42.66 thru 2006, 44.51 in 2007

Obviously, in 2007 Pena turned his ground balls into fly balls. Again, though, this is not a significant difference from the rest of his career coming into the season.

LD%: 19.23 thru 2006, 18.03 in 2007

He actually did a little worse in this category in 2007. This one is close to being a significant, but not enough to call it an extreme difference.

HR/FB: 17.62 thru 2006, 29.11 in 2007

We can call this an extreme improvement. Even though Pena didn’t hit many more fly balls overall in 2007, many more of them became home runs.

BABIP: .295 thru 2006, .305 in 2007

One of the biggest indicators of luck doesn’t show a high degree of fortune for Pena in 2007. While his BABIP was higher than his career average coming into the season, it wasn’t that much higher, and was exactly the league average in 2007.

Pena only did two things significantly better in 2007 to become the beast he was last year. But is this success something he can maintain long-term? Or even throughout the duration of the new three year, $24 million contract he just signed with the Tampa Bay Rays?

One way too look at this would be to just simply look at his BABIP and say, “Well, last year wasn’t based on luck, so he can stay this productive.”

While it’s a fact that Pena “legitimately” posted the numbers he did last year without the aid of a high BABIP, I think decline is in his future.

Pitchers that make it to the Major League level aren’t stupid. And the employees of the teams they pitch for, that prepare scouting reports on Carlos Pena, aren’t either. They know that the key to Pena’s breakout season was the abnormally high amount of walks he had drawn.

While this is somewhat a “skill” shown by Pena—to draw walks--it depends highly on the pitcher throwing the balls. A batter can be as adept as ever at taking balls, but that won’t mean anything if the pitcher isn’t throwing them.

Put simply, if pitchers throw more strikes to Pena in the future, he’s going to be less productive (when I say strikes I, obviously, don’t mean meatballs down the heart of the plate). Now, I know that sounds ridiculous, but Pena’s career batting average shows he isn’t great at collecting hits.

While he did do a good job hitting strikes last season, as shown by his .282 batting average, his career number coming into 2007 was .243. That .243 accumulated over 1924 plate appearances says more than the .282 he posted in 612 plate appearances last season.

Carlos Pena is not a good hitter for average. He may be better than he was before 2007, but he is still a “high walk, low average” hitter; who strikes out way too much.

While there are some hitters out there who have had a successful career using the “high walk, low average” attack, most of them can at least post a league average batting average (.269 in 2007). Pena is not this kind of hitter.

When pitchers throw him more strikes in the future, Pena will be forced to swing at more pitches, most likely resulting in less contact, which in turn will lead to less walks.

Just by the mere fact of getting more strikes to hit, Pena will not be able to use half of his “formula for success in 2007;” draw more walks, hit more HR’s.

As for the other half of the formula, hitting more HR’s, this is an area Pena will suffer in for the obvious reason that he cannot sustain the type of success he had in 2007, again. I know this isn’t “sabermetric” enough of a reason, but Carlos Pena will hit less home runs going forward simply because he is not Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, or Barry Bonds—or even close to those guys.

Does this bring him back down to the .243/.332/.459 hitter he was before 2007? Quite possibly; and it also doesn’t help that next year will be his age-30 season.

Pena will be a better hitter in 2008 because he has shown he can have success in the league, but, I wouldn’t use the numbers he posted in 2007 as a starting point for improvement. I would use his pre-2007 numbers, and post a small improvement from there.

Frank Bundy III