Reevaluating Brayan Pena

In a previous post, I mentioned that Brayan Pena shouldn't be a starter.  At the time, Pena was hitting .275/.296/.412 and I tried to use logic, reason and stats to show that he wouldn't be able to keep it up.  Since then, Pena has hit .321/.345/.421 and has made me look like an idiot.  Time to reevaluate.  Why is Pena having so much success this year as opposed to previous years?

The first set of stats are batted ball data, both from FanGraphs and Baseball-reference:

		FanGraphs			Baseball-reference
Year	BABIP	LD%	GB%	FB%	LD%	GB%	FB%
2010	0.295	16.3%	45.0%	38.8%	15.5%	45.7%	38.8%
2011	0.261	22.9%	44.3%	32.8%	20.4%	44.8%	34.8%
2012	0.253	24.6%	48.2%	27.2%	19.9%	48.7%	31.4%
2013	0.325	19.2%	52.9%	27.9%	19.8%	52.9%	27.3%
Career	0.276	21.0%	49.1%	29.9%	19.1%	49.8%	31.0%

While before Pena had an inflated ground ball rate, now, while still high, it's more in-line of what he's done in previous seasons and his career.  His BABIP seems inflated, though.

Now plate discipline numbers:

Year	O-Swing%	Z-Swing%	Swing%	O-Contact%	Z-Contact%	Contact%	Zone%
2010	31.4%	64.5%	48.5%	65.6%	90.5%	82.7%	51.7%
2011	28.7%	61.0%	45.1%	70.4%	93.9%	89.4%	50.6%
2012	31.9%	60.4%	46.5%	76.7%	94.5%	88.5%	51.1%
2013	28.6%	62.5%	45.5%	73.2%	95.0%	88.1%	49.7%
Career	30.2%	61.3%	45.7%	76.5%	93.7%	88.0%	49.8%

Not much difference at all.  His 2.9% walk rate is the lowest it's ever been in the 5 years he's been in the majors full-time, which could be reflected by the 3.5% decrease in O-Contact%.   His 10.3% strikeout rate is in-line of what he did the last 2 years.  He tends to put a lot of balls in play with that 88.1% contact rate.  

Brooks Baseball has a breakdown on the different pitches, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and career numbers.

4-Seam Fastball:

Year	Count	AB	BB	AVG
2010	290	61	6	0.213
2011	440	91	6	0.319
2012	327	84	4	0.310
2013	383	65	4	0.308
Career	1681	363	30	0.289

Aside from 2010, Pena has been pretty consistent in hitting the fastball.  This data shouldn't be taken as 100% accurate, though.  From what it looks like below, some 4-seam fastballs might have been misclassified as sinkers in 2010.

Sinker:

Year	Count	AB	BB	AVG
2010	136	33	2	0.455
2011	209	51	1	0.196
2012	197	48	1	0.208
2013	155	46	1	0.217
Career	890	228	6	0.237

Except for 2010, Pena has always struggled to hit sinkers, and that trend has continued in 2013.  He has, however, improved in all the other pitches.

Change:

Year	Count	AB	BB	AVG
2010	77	28	1	0.179
2011	153	46	2	0.217
2012	114	37	2	0.270
2013	102	24	0	0.500
Career	548	165	6	0.285

Slider:

Year	Count	AB	BB	AVG
2010	90	22	0	0.227
2011	97	21	3	0.191
2012	96	23	3	0.261
2013	91	22	0	0.318
Career	444	107	6	0.243

Curve:

Year	Count	AB	BB	AVG
2010	57	12	0	0.250
2011	96	23	1	0.174
2012	66	20	0	0.200
2013	69	16	0	0.313
Career	359	90	2	0.278

It could be that he's recognizing off-speed/breaking pitches better than he has before and that's causing greater success.  Although, we are talking about small samples, so the possibility of it all being a fluke still exists.  In the meantime, Pena has made great use of his playing time in the absence of Alex Avila.  Offensively anyway; defense is a whole other story.