He’s Hitting What?

Tony Pena Jr plays a good shortstop, so the Royals have given him a mostly regular job at shortstop over the last year and a half. During that time, we have learned one clear truth.

Tony Pena Jr can’t hit.

I’m not talking about Pena struggling at the plate. I’m not saying he’s a bad hitter for a major leaguer. I’m saying that Tony Pena Jr might be one of the worst hitters ever to put on a major league uniform. He’s unbelievably bad. For the season, he’s hitting .160/.181/.200. The average pitcher in the National League is hitting .141/.180/.177. At least he’s better than them as a group, but the margin couldn’t be much smaller.

While Pena’s not really this bad, he is pretty terrible. For his career, he has a 2.2% BB% thanks to a 39.06% O-Swing%. He swings at almost 40% of pitches out of the strike zone, and due to that aggressiveness, he never ever walks. But it’s not like his aggressiveness comes with its own rewards, because he’s not good at making contact either. His contact rate is just 79.44%, and his career K% is 17.1%. This isn’t a guy who is swinging at everything because he can actually put the bat on the ball. He’s just swinging at everything because… well, I have no idea why.

Even when he does make contact, pitchers don’t care. His Isolated Slugging % this year is a dreadful .041 (and .080 for his career), as he has just five extra base hits on the season. Most of that is because he’s an extreme groundball hitter with a career GB% of 55.8%. When you pound the ball into the ground, you’re basically hoping for a single at best, and that limits the value of your hits. In fact, most guys with extreme groundball tendencies and some speed teach themselves how to bunt so that they can maximize their skills, but Pena’s not even good at that – he has seven career bunt hits. For comparison, Luis Castillo got 16 bunt hits last year.

Pena is the complete package – ridiculously aggressive with poor contact skills, no power, and an inability to bunt himself on base. Add it all up, and you get a guy with a career .242/.261/.321 line that no amount of good defense can compensate for. I wasn’t sure I would ever see a team give regular at-bats to a guy with less offensive ability than Rey Ordonez, but along came Tony Pena Jr.

Royals fans, you have my sympathy.