I know the young man worked on his swing in the off season and its paid back in spades.......love this kid, he can be a core piece for this team. Keep it up sir......but stop the dam HEB commercials LOL
he's looking lost again. he's 1 for his last 20 AB or something like that. both pena and jake are struggling after a hot start. defensively, both are still top tier.
I don't think there's any reason to believe Pena will ever be anything more than an average bat. He does a terrible job of commanding the zone and is practically incapable of hitting for power - that's not a great combination for a 26 year old in his 8th year of pro ball. The fact that he's spent a good amount of time as our clean up hitter is.... not good.
Pena is not the problem. The lack of consistent run production around him is. Pena as a hitter runs hot and cold and averages out to about average. His defense makes him an above average player, and very acceptable SS. The problem is he should be a #8 or #9 hitter. Ditto for Jake Meyers. If Altuve, Tucker, Alvarez, Bregman, Diaz, and a legitimate 120+ wRC+ 1b were healthy on this team and hitting as they should it would not be an issue.
Didn't mean to imply otherwise. Pena should never be relied upon to carry a large load offensively. If this team is back to competing for titles he needs to be a bottom of the order offensive talent.
If Espadumb had any sense, he would bat Pena 2-hole -- where he experienced his best success -- or bottom of the order (<--- prob more preferable). Batting him and/or a struggling Bregman at cleanup is Pete Rose gambling against his team.
At this point it’s out of necessity since Tucker is out and Meyers/Diaz are struggling off/on just as much. the lineup will always be some order of Altuve/Bregman/Yordan/Tucker consecutively.
It's weird looking at Pena's career splits: he is pretty great at both 2nd and 8th (400+ and 160+ PA, respectively), and totally mediocre or worse everywhere else. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=penaje02&year=Career&t=b
at this point I thought we were passed the "player does great only at this spot in the lineup" logic. When Pena was on his hot streak to start the year it really didn't matter where he was batting. Now allofasudden it does when he's struggling? He's just going to be a streaky hitter that averages out to be an average hitter for his career. He's also probably going to need more breathers here/there as him and Bregman truly do play everyday regardless given that theres really no comparable backup (given that Dubon is playing everywhere else).
I just said it was weird, the dichotomy between the 2 spots and all. eta: same trend holds up this season, in albeit a small sample size. Weird I say.
