The Tigers Don't Need Brayan Pena

Brayan Pena announced that he won't be returning to the Tigers in 2014:

I was inform that i will not be returning to The Tigers ,i want to thanks the FANS, the ORGANIZATION & my TEAMMATES for the opportunity !!!!
— Brayan Pena (@cuban2727) October 30, 2013

A quick glance at Pena's 2013 stats shows that he was a pretty productive hitter and might have a few fans wondering why they aren't considering resigning him.   

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	ISO	BABIP	BB%	K%	wRC+
243	0.297	0.315	0.397	0.100	0.315	2.5%	10.7%	93

Pena had a very solid .297 batting average.  However, with only a 2.5% walk rate, his OBP wasn't very high at .315 and a .100 ISO means he didn't hit for much extra base power.  According to wRC+, Pena still fell a little short of the average production of a 100 wRC+.  Of everyone that received at least 200 PA in 2013 and had a batting average of at least .290, only 5 failed to have a wRC+ of 100.  This is a perfect example of how batting average can be a manipulative stat.  

Looking at Pena's previous seasons, it shows that 2013 might be an aberration.  

	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	ISO	BABIP	BB%	K%	wRC+
2010	174	0.253	0.306	0.335	0.082	0.295	6.9%	15.5%	75
2011	240	0.248	0.288	0.338	0.090	0.261	5.0%	10.0%	68
2012	226	0.236	0.262	0.321	0.085	0.253	4.0%	10.6%	54
2010-2012 Total	640	0.245	0.284	0.331	0.086	0.267	5.2%	11.7%	65

When projecting forward, it's much more reasonable that he'll revert back to his career norms, especially when he's entering his age-32 year and is in the back-end of his prime years.  

It is expected that Bryan Holaday will get a shot at being Avila's backup catcher next year.  In his very brief MLB stint, Holaday has hit .282/.333/.410 with a 105 wRC+ in 46 PA.  Last year in AAA, Holaday hit .260/.312/.372 with a 91 wRC+ in 320 PA.  He'll be entering his age-26 season, so he may not have much more to prove in the minors.  And his right-handed bat will compliment Avila's left-handed bat nicely.

Defensively, Holaday is very solid.  From B_Sakowski at Bless You Boys:

Holaday is a defense-first catcher that combines solid blocking skills, good receiving skills, and a plus throwing arm behind the plate.

If the Tigers decide to outside of the organization, here is a list of available Free Agents expected to sign as a back-up catcher along with their 2011-2013 production and their 2013 salary.  I also included Pena for comparison's sake.

	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	ISO	BABIP	BB%	K%	wRC+	2013 Salary
Dioner Navarro	541	0.260	0.324	0.425	0.165	0.275	8.3%	15.3%	104	$1,750,000
Geovany Soto	1019	0.220	0.299	0.396	0.176	0.265	9.3%	25.5%	86	$2,750,000
Kelly Shoppach	625	0.202	0.288	0.373	0.171	0.283	7.5%	34.2%	83	$1,500,000
Jose Molina	778	0.241	0.301	0.349	0.108	0.297	7.3%	21.5%	83	$1,500,000
Kurt Suzuki	1273	0.235	0.29	0.353	0.118	0.253	6.3%	13.5%	75	$8,500,000
Miguel Olivo	910	0.222	0.248	0.386	0.164	0.265	3.5%	27.3%	74	$800,000
Brayan Pena	709	0.261	0.289	0.353	0.092	0.277	3.8%	10.4%	72	$875,000
Yorvit Torrealba	833	0.254	0.300	0.355	0.101	0.291	6.0%	15.5%	72	$1,000,000
Wil Nieves	349	0.274	0.303	0.351	0.076	0.325	4.3%	17.5%	71	$800,000

As can be seen, the Tigers have several options, and that's without exploring the trade market.  Bryan Pena should be no big loss to the Tigers in 2014.  

The Game Winning RBI

If you were a fan of baseball during the 1980s, you might remember a statistic that is no longer kept, the game winning RBI, or GW RBI.  GW RBI was an official MLB stat from 1980-1988 that recorded the number of RBI a player had that put his team ahead for good.  For example, say the game is tied 2-2 and a batter received an RBI that made it 3-2.  Then his team scored 2 more runs to make it 5-2 and the final score was 5-4.  The batter that drove in the 3rd run gets credit for the GW RBI even though his team needed all 5 runs to win.  With those rules in mind, I resurected this obsolete stat for the 2013 Tigers:

Player	GW RBI
Miguel Cabrera	15
Torii Hunter	15
Prince Fielder	14
Victor Martinez	9
Omar Infante	8
Alex Avila	5
Andy Dirks	4
Jhonny Peralta	3
Don Kelly	3
Brayan Pena	2
Ramon Santiago	2
Austin Jackson	1
Jose Iglesias	1
Max Scherzer	1

Not surprising, Miguel Cabrera tops the list, but his co-leader, Torii Hunter, might be surprising.  Also, despite having 30 RBI, Matt Tuiasosopo doesn't have a single GW RBI, not even when he was hitting .329/.447/.624 in the first half.  

The problem with this stat is similar with the RBI stat in general.  It depends too much on timing and the teammates getting on base.  Even as a "clutch" stat, it has it's weaknesses.  Most of the time, the player wouldn't know that his RBI was the game winning one until after the game unless he had a walk-off hit.  Oftentimes the first RBI became the game winning one and most people wouldn't associate the first few innings as "clutch" innings.  With this in mind, it's easy to see why Torii Hunter had so many GW RBI, being the 2nd batter in the game and having the opportunity to drive in the first run with Austin Jackson on base.  

You might notice that the Tigers have 84 wins, but only 83 GW RBI have been awarded.  This is because of the game on 9/10, the game winning run wasn't an RBI, but rather scored on the result of an error.  Victor Martinez got the first RBI in that game, but his RBI wasn't the "game winning" run as defined by the rules.  This confused me on how to score it, but I ultimately gave no one the GW RBI in this scenario.  Going back to the earlier example of the 5-4 game, it can be debated that the 5th run should be the GW RBI and not the 3rd.  With these issues, it's easy to see why this stat was discontinued.  

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.  

Catcher ERA

Justin Verlander had another rocky start yesterday, surrendering 7 ER in 6 innings.  In his last 15 starts, Verlander has a 5.22 ERA in 91 1/3 innings with a 1.57 WHIP and 82 strikeouts.  There have been several theories in why Verlander is having a down year this year, with the most likely case is that his mechanics are off, causing command issues.  

Another theory going around is that Verlander is much more comfortable with Alex Avila catching than Brayan Pena (based on something Verlander supposedly said on 97.1 this morning).  After all, it was Pena that was catching Verlander last night.  There has been several articles written about the flaws of using catcher ERA because of external factors outside of the control of the catcher, mainly including the talent of the pitcher, the ballpark and the defense.  I crunched some numbers to put this study to the test using Tiger starting pitchers.  I'm also including Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) since the differences in ERA can be more luck-based than skill-based.  

	Alex Avila			Brayan Pena
	IP	ERA	FIP	IP	ERA	FIP
Justin Verlander	67 1/3	3.74	3.54	65 1/3	3.99	3.26
Anibal Sanchez	77 2/3	2.67	2.75	26 1/3	2.73	1.34
Max Scherzer	81 2/3	3.09	2.29	56	3.21	3.57
Doug Fister	78	4.15	3.64	49	3.49	3.03
Rick Porcello	79	3.30	3.31	11	5.73	3.87
Total	383 2/3	3.38	3.09	207 2/3	3.60	3.08

The Tigers starting pitchers do have a lower ERA using Avila (3.38) over Pena (3.60).  However, the differences in FIP is insignificant (3.09 for Avila and 3.08 for Pena).  It looks likes pitching performance is not dependent on the catcher and that any big differences shown in this table can be explained away by small sample sizes.  Verlander has close to about the same number of innings using Avila and Pena and his ERA and FIP differences appear to be insignificant.  

This isn't to say that a pitcher isn't more comfortable using a certain catcher.  Many pitchers have used a "personal catcher" throughout the years.  It's this psychological part of the game that often gets lost in advanced stats.  Similar to how relief pitchers like to have certain roles in the bullpen or certain batters like to hit in certain spots in the lineup.  The numbers do not show a significant difference, but the mentality is there nonetheless.  It is possible that Verlander is more comfortable using Avila and this mindset might be the first step in breaking Verlander out of this slump.