If 2025 is a good season for Jeremy Pena, that would be a big plus for the Astros’ playoff chances.
Last year Fangraphs told me I visited Jeremy Pena’s player page more than any other player page. (Hunter Brown was a close second.) That surprised me because I didn’t recall focusing special attention on Pena in my articles. But as I think about it, as the Astros’ shortstop, Pena is a particularly important part of the team, with both his offensive and defensive performances playing critical roles in the team’s results. And last year his performance was up and down over the course of the season, which probably explains why I was looking for continual updates on his statistics in 2024.
Judging from previous game threads, I think there is some sense of disappointment in Pena’s performance among Astros’ fans. I think this may be unfair. Pena had a terrific post season in 2022, earning the World Series most valuable player. And that may have created excessive expectations among fans. In addition, Carlos Correa, his predecessor at shortstop, was a very special player, which also added unrealistic expectations. But Jeremy Pena shouldn’t be compared to Correa. Pena is a player with his own style and profile. He can be a good, productive player without reminding us of Correa.
Pena’s composite performance for each season, 2022, 2023, and 2024, is fairly similar. On offense, he created similar run value for each season. (wRC+ of 102, 97, and 100 in 2022, 2023, and 2024.) Pena has been a league average hitter on a composite basis. And that’s a positive trait for the most difficult defensive position on the field. The 2025 projections continue to tab Pena as a league average hitter, perhaps moving to slightly above league average. The Fangraphs depth chart projection points to an above average 103 wRC+. Baseball-Reference’s “no frills” Marcel projection lands at 102 OPS+ in 2025. The Steamer component of the FG projection is even more optimistic at 107 wRC+.
While the offensive value (in terms of runs created) is quite similar for each season, the components of Pena’s offensive value shifted quite a bit between 2022 and 2023 / 2024. Pena’s power (HRs and ISO) was significantly higher in 2022. But his K rate and OBP improved significantly after 2022. Pena has not proven to be a high exit velocity hitter. In fact, Pena’s average exit velocity remained approximately the same each season. His hard hit rate is very similar for each season. Given minimal change in exit velocity, perhaps the higher HR and ISO were a little flukey in 2022. Furthermore, the shift between 2022 and later seasons perhaps indicates that Pena was willing to make a trade-off between higher power, on the one hand, and improved contact and OBP on the other hand.
In 2024, Pena was in the top third of MLB players for avoiding strike outs and producing expected batting average (x-BA). He is also above average on bat speed and squared up rate, which likely helped improve his batting average. Pena is also well below average on his chase rate—something we see when he flails against sliders on the outside corner.
Reportedly, Pena has been working on becoming more selective this spring in an effort to reduce his chase rate. If this leads to a higher BB rate, Pena’s composite offensive value could reach a new level. His spring performance doesn’t show any BB results, but the increased pitch selectivity could be contributing to excellent offensive production so far.
So far this spring, Pena has produced the following line: 2 HR/ .500 BA / .500 OBP / 1.438 OPS. Yes, this is a small sample size. And spring training results frequently aren’t meaningful. But if the performance is the result of an improved approach at the plate, this may bode well for 2025.
I would not be surprised if we see a significant improvement in Pena’s performance in 2025—perhaps something along the lines of Steamer’s 107 wRC+ projection or the upper end (80 percentile) of ZIPS’ projection (113 wRC+). Pena is entering his age 27 / 28 season. Typically age 27 – 28 represents a peak age for baseball player production.
Among similar shortstops, offensive production at age 27 and 28 is notably higher than the years prior to age 27. The table below shows similar shortstops’ offensive results for age 27 – 28 compared to their accumulated offensive stats for seasons prior to age 27. This isn’t a definitive comparison; I’m sure you might find examples of shortstops with age-related stats which are the opposite. However, these five shortstop are on Baseball-Reference’s list of 10 most similar players to Jeremy Pena. (I excluded some players on the B-R comparable player list who didn’t play shortstop or had unusual injury patterns.) As you can see, each of these comparable shortstops were better offensive players at age 27 – 28 than they were in previous accumulated seasons.
The average percentage increase for these players: OPS+ 17%; HR per season 90%; SLG 11%. Again, I’m not saying that Pena will achieve those percentage improvements. And it’s certainly possible that the aging patterns for these five players is quite different than for Pena. But the comparison gives a suggestion that we might see some improvement by Pena in 2025.
So far, my discussion has centered on Pena’s offense rather than his defense. The advanced metrics indicate that Pena’s defensive performance has declined since 2022. Pena was a Gold Glove winner at shortstop in 2022. The annual pattern for his DRS: 2022 +16; 2023 +7; 2024 +4. The concern is that Pena’s fielding appears to be declining each year. That is not an inconsequential concern—in fact, I have raised it in previous articles. However, three data points are not enough to conclude that Pena is in the midst of a noticeable decline.
Yes, it’s possible that Pena’s defense is declining year by year. But an alternate interpretation is also reasonable. It’s plausible that Pena’s defensive runs saved were very good in 2022 because the infield shift was available. However, with the elimination of the shift in 2023, Pena’s normal defensive runs saved (without the shift) may well fall in the + 4 to +7 range. If Pena continues to provide moderately above-average defense at this level in the future, he will be one of the more valuable shortstops in the major leagues.
So, what do you expect from Jeremy Pena in 2025?