There are some great signs that Astros’ Jeremy Peña could break out in 2025

Jeremy Peña is a bit of a polarizing figure among the Houston Astros fanbase. Some fans remember Peña's playoff heroics and his occasional defensive brilliance at shortstop, while others have been frustrated by his aggressive approach at the plate and the offensive production lagging behind his considerable potential.

On the surface, Peña's numbers in 2025 look like more of the same irritations that have angered the Astros fanbase since his debut. Peña is making contact, but has little to show for it with a .204/.290/.333 slash line through his first 62 plate appearances this season.

However, a closer look at Peña's batted ball metrics shows that not only has he improved in some important areas and has played better than his numbers suggest, but he could be on the verge of a massive breakout at the plate.

Jeremy Peña's batted ball metrics should have Astros fans really excited

Over the years, Peña has received a well-earned reputation for being an impatient player who swings too often, will chase pitches outside of the strike zone, and struggles to consistently impact the ball. However, Chandler Rome of The Athletic, correctly noted that Peña's line drive rate is up significantly in 2025. But his improvements go even deeper than that.

While Peña still chases pitches outside the zone far too much, his expected batting average, average exit velocity, and hard hit rate, are all well above the numbers he'd posted in recent years. For a player who makes as much contact as Peña does (seriously, stop swinging so much), that is a great sign, even if the back of his baseball card isn't showing much just yet.

It is on Peña to keep up this pace and eventually reap the rewards. With as much loud contact as he's making, good things are going to starting happening for Peña sooner than later. One only hopes Peña doesn't try to "fix" too much in response to his surface level numbers, as that will likely result in losing all the tangible progress he's made this season.

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