Jeremy Peña’s regression this season comes back to one very familiar problem

One of the more intriguing storylines coming into the 2024 season for the Houston Astros was what Jeremy Peña would look like at the plate. While his defense was largely lauded, Peña's offensive production has been inconsistent at best, sporting a wRC+ of 102 and 96 (both of which are very mediocre) in his first two seasons in the big leagues. Clearly, his playoff prowess in 2022 helped define his legacy, but the regular-season production ... wasn't really there, and never has been.

There was cause for optimism with Peña heading into this season, however. He has certainly shown real pop at the plate at times and, many were very excited to see how the swing changes Peña made could help him tap into his offensive potential more. Through the first month of the season, Peña looked like he was well on his way to a breakout season, as he had an .818 OPS during that span.

Unfortunately, Peña has regressed pretty badly since that hot start (although July has looked promising again), and those struggles come back to his long-built issues with chasing out of the zone.

Jeremy Peña has to fix his chasing issues if he ever wants to reach his ceiling with the Astros

While Peña may have altered his swing and shown flashes of brilliance, one constant has remained the same. Ever since he came up to the big leagues in 2022, he has been in the bottom 11% or worse each season among all qualified hitters when it comes to chasing pitches out of the zone. The results have varied over the course of each season, but that has remained a persistent problem.

In Peña's case, that hasn't always translated to him striking out more, although it definitely doesn't help in that department The bigger problem is that he is swinging at bad pitches that he can't do damage on, leading to a lot of missed barrels, weak grounders, and overall bad batted ball characteristics. If he gets a pitch he can drive in the zone, Peña is more than able to do so. However, these swing decisions are holding him back.

Unfortunately, this is not an easy problem to fix. Identifying what a pitcher throws, where he is going to throw it, and making that split-second swing decision might be the hardest skill in baseball, if not all professional sports, to master. A more patient approach at the plate would be a good place to start, as he is also not great at drawing walks and working counts. If he can start getting into counts where pitchers need to throw strikes, that would be a good starting point. However, if he keeps going up there hacking, big league pitchers are going to continue to take advantage of him.

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