Carlos Pena Trying To Stay Young

What a country. Carlos Pena batted .225 in 2011 and he just signed a $7.25-million deal to play for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2012. I need a new agent. OK, he did hit 28 homers and knock in 80 runs for the Chicago Cubs, and I presume if he matches those two statistics Tampa Bay will consider that to be a solid enough return on his one-year contract.

It is really is hard to argue that such a payday for that type of production is not overpaying, but the Rays need a bat and a first baseman and they know Carlos from his previous four-year stint with the team. This is the best they could do and they are hoping that is not the best Pena can do. Jack that batting average up about 40 points, Carlos.

Is it any wonder that Albert Pujols could command $250 million? Is it any wonder that Prince Fielder is probably waiting for something similar? Owners always complain about costs and then spend wildly, as if they are using Monopoly money. The market is what the market is, however, and unless a team wants to be the Pittsburgh Pirates it must raid the vault. It’s like high stakes poker. If you can’t afford the buy-in at the table, you shouldn’t be in the game.

So what can Pena bring to this table? When he is on, Carlos is a slugger who can smack a ball far enough that no fences can restrain him. He can clear the bases for you. But how reliable is he at age 33? Tampa Bay’s investment says that team’s officials think he can still do it, that he is not washed up. Still, a .225 average means there are fences he didn’t clear and there were no doubt plenty of base runners he left on the sacks. Despite Pena’s power prowess, that average isn’t as much of an aberration as the Rays might like to think. Pena’s lifetime batting average is .239.

More than 7 million bucks for a .239 hitter. That is a new definition of Moneyball. Isn’t Pena the anti-Moneyball hitter? For those payroll conscious execs who have been looking for extra value hidden in the habits and statistics of players, aren’t the Pena situations what they are trying to avoid? He strikes me as a player who does not add up to the sum of his good statistics and he has some bad statistics that negate them, too.

As we have heard, chicks dig the long ball, but despite Bill James equations, and newfangled ways of looking at players, the visceral reaction is still to reward ballplayers who can smoke the ball 450 feet, even if they ground to short or strike out a dozen times for every time they take one deep.

This is not to jump on Pena. After 11 years in the big leagues he can’t help who he is, can’t change who he is, and doing what he does has made him rich, so I doubt he wants to change anyway. But he is a type. He is also of an age where it is very easy to see him slipping and not recording in the good statistics he turned in for the Cubs.

Or Pena could have almost exactly the same kind of season he had in 2011 with Tampa Bay in 2012. He might hit .230 with 25 homers and 75 RBIs.  If that’s the result, it will be up to the Rays to determine if they think they got their money’s worth.