Joey Loperfido called up to the big show. And checking in on Jeremy Pena.
As the Astros left Mexico and flew back to Houston, word spread that the Astros will call up 24 year old OF/1b Joey Loperfido before Tuesday’s game against the Guardians. Given the urgency necessary to change the course of the Astros’ season, Dana Brown should be commended for decisions like this. The Astros are in no position to wait around for making improvements to the team.
Loperfido may, or may not, be part of the solution to the Astros’ run scoring issues. But the move made sense for an Astros’ team that is ranked dead last in wRC+ at 1b and could use an injection of additional HR power in the lineup. The Astros’ offense is ranked 4th in wRC+, but only 13th in HRs and 14th in isolated power. If Loperfido can adjust to major league pitching, he may be able to provide some additional HR power for the team.
Joey’s performance has been hard to miss in AAA. He leads the minor leagues with 13 HRs in 25 games. He batted .276 with a 1.06 OPS and a 144 wRC+. The one cause for concern is his 30.8% K rate—mostly because the strike out rate is likely to increase when he faces major league pitchers.
As well as Loperfido has performed in AAA, I would caution fans to avoid sky high expectations when he arrives in the major leagues. Rookie batters often struggle when they first reach the major league level. This can be seen by comparing rookie (age 25 or less) hitters to all hitters in 2024:
2024 Rookies: BA .227 OBP .298 SLG .350 wRC+ 87 K% 23.2%
2024 All Hitters: BA .241 OBP .315 SLG .385 wRC+ 100 K% 22.4%
Rookies tend to hit worse across the board. Their wRC+ is 13% worse than the average hitter. Interestingly, the Fangraphs depth chart projection for Loperfido is 87 wRC+, which is the same as the average wRC+ for rookies this year. We can hope that Loperfido puts up better hitting stats in the majors this season, but it sometimes takes awhile for rookie batters to adjust to the quality of pitching in the big leagues.
At the moment, there are some unanswered questions surrounding this call up. To make room, who will be removed from the 40 man roster and who will be removed from the 25 man active roster? Kessinger? Singleton? Abreu? (unlikely) Although I am just speculating, don’t rule out the possibility of an injury among the current players, which would clear a space by moving a player to the injured list.
Another question is how will Loperfido be used? According to Michael Schwab, “Loperfido will mostly get looks in the outfield at first when he joins the Astros, per sources.” For fans anxious to see improvement in the offense from 1b, it may be disappointing if Loperfido isn’t tabbed for first base.
Chandler Rome, writing for the Athletic, seems to assume that Loperfido will play or platoon at 1b. At AAA, Loperfido mostly played in the outfield with only seven games at 1b. Rome’s article cites an opposing scout who thinks it will take some time for Loperfido to learn the “nuances” of 1b, but believes “the athleticism plays well there.”
The Fangraphs scouting report on Loperfido was published at the end of 2023, but the description remains useful:
Loperfido is fine in center field (where he mostly played later in college) and at first base (where he played a lot as a freshman and on Cape Cod), and could be a plus defender at first because of his size and mobility. And as I said, Loperfido’s hard-hit rate is sky high, north of 50% as of list publication. Still, there is room for improvement here. He’s a bit passive at the plate, his swing isn’t actualized to get to all that power in games yet, and he’ll probably always post a higher-than-average K%. But if Loperfido can get to his power and play center field part-time, he’s going to be a high-use role player. We want to take the long view on lefty power hitters built like this and think there’s a chance Loperfido is a meaningful piece.
Stay tuned to find out how the Astros intend to use Loperfido and whether he can contribute to the offense.
Jeremy Pena
After making minor changes to eliminate excess movement in his swing, Jeremy Pena’s hitting has improved significantly over 2023—at least so far in 2024. Pena’s slash line of .321 BA, .357 OBP, .450 SLG, is accompanied by a wRC+ of 135. That obviously is better than the wRC+ of 96 in 2023. Pena’s current K rate is 13.9%, which is among the top 10% for controlling the strike out rate. Pena apparently has slashed his 2022 – 2023 strike out rate by almost 10 percentage points. But to this point, Pena’s walk rate (4.3%) has regressed somewhat and could stand some improvement.
Pena was well known for whiffing on sliders in the past. But according to Baseball Savant, Pena has improved considerably against breaking pitches—with a xwOBA of .410 vs. .261 on those pitches in 2023. Similarly his whiff% on those pitches has declined from 39% in 2023 to 29% so far in 2024. That’s not to say that Pena plate discipline is great. He still is in the bottom 10% for chase rate.
The normal caveat of small sample size applies to 2024. And I’m not saying that I’m completely sold on his current batting slash line. Pena has been streaky in the past and has gone through periods with exceptional batting performance only to regress rather quickly. We will have to wait and see whether he has taken a permanent step forward. But so far, so good.
Playoff Odds
The Astros playoff odds have taken a big hit since the beginning of the season, but they haven’t cratered. According to Fangraphs, the Astros odds of making the playoffs stand at 49% and the odds of winning the division are 31%. PECOTA is more optimistic on the Astros’ future, with playoff odds of 76% and odds of winning the division at 55%.