During the catcher report from a few days ago, I mentioned that Baseball America sees Francisco Pena as the Mets catcher of the future. First off, I made a mistake under Pena's BA, his BA is .210 I stated that it was .263 which is actually his OBP.
Pena was signedon July 9th, 2006 and is the son of Tony Pena. When he signed with the Mets he was only 16 years old. During that time, people were saying that he was the best catching prospect to leave the Dominican Republic in a long time. In 2007, he played professional ball for the first time and his stats were as follows:
103 G, 367 AB, 77 H, 12 2B, 5 HR, 30 RBI, 1 SB, 24 BB, .210 BA, .263 OBP, .283 SLG, .547 OPS
With 17 extra base hits, 22% of his hits here for extra bases. (To put into perspective, last season 37% of Wright's hits were for extra bases, 23% of LoDuca's hits were for extra bases). Milb.com, in there season review article, blames Pena's lower than expected numbers on the level of minor league play. They feel the Mets might have rushed him by placing him in low A (Savannah Sand Gnats) ball. Jonathan Mayo, the author of that article, says ” Here's hoping he can learn from adversity because he was given a healthy dose right off the bat.”
Statistically speaking, Jason Jacobs, the catcher and DH for the Cyclones last summer, had the best year offensivly. It will be interesting how he is placed next year because power wise, he did well at his level but probably is not ready for a jump to St. Lucie. Pena is not ready for a jump to St. Lucie as well. Maybe they will platoon at Savannah for a period of time and the one with worse stats will drop to Brooklyn in June? I don't know. A lot can happen at the start of the season, especially if one gets an invite to Spring Training, dominates, and finds himself in a higher minor league level.
