Second Half Outlook: Brad Penny

Brad Penny has become a subject of trade talks recently and even has put up a few good games, but has he really turned the corner yet? His ERA has finally dropped under 5 and his numbers suggest he was heading in the right direction, but has he made any improvements and is he ready to be a productive fantasy pitcher?

Penny has finally pulled his K/BB to league average at 2.00, but still has awhile to go to get it above 2.50 to be a solid pitcher. Since the start of May he has thrown 59 innings with 49 strikeouts and 16 walks for a 3.06 K/BB ratio.

His Pitch F/x also shows a change in the past month as his velocity for 2009 of the fastball has been 93 mph, but in the past month of starts he has climbed to an average fastball of 95 mph. You can also see it looks like he made a change over a 3 week period from 5/20 - 6/11. Using Fangraphs.com Pitch F/x we can see the movement in his release point over a 4 week period.

5/20/09 Blue Jays @ Red Sox

5/25/09 Red Sox @ Twins

5/30/09 Red Sox @ Blue Jays

6/5/09 Rangers @ Red Sox

6/11/09 Yankees @ Red Sox


You can see that the release point moved a few inches to the left over these games. Often a drop or movement of release point is a bad thing, but with as much time as Penny has missed it maybe an adjustment the team thought he needed to make to fix his delivery. It appears to have worked looking at his past month and a half of starts.

One word of caution if you are expecting the 2007 Brad Penny to return is his ground ball rate. It peaked in 2007 and 2008 and is now one of his lowest career rates.

Year GB%
2006 43.5%
2007 48.7%
2008 49.1%
2009 40.6%

This does not seem to be increasing with his recent increase in K/BB. It will be interesting to see if this returns, but we have to assume he will have a low 40% ground ball rate this year.

So what is his value going forward? If he holds his K/BB above 2.50 as he has for more than a month than even with the low GB% he should be around a 4.00 ERA or possibly better. On the other hand if he keeps up this run and his GB% returns he would be pitching much like 2005 when he had a 4.00 ERA, 3.57 FIP and a 4.02 xFIP.

The Red Sox have made it seem like they would prefer to hold onto Penny. This seems like a good choice right now and they will have a better picture if the return is real before the trade deadline. He is a sure thing better choice than Dice-K, but needs to keep it up to make him a better choice than Clay Buchholz. If he is traded I think he should still be OK and it should be a contender, but watch for hitters parks and poor defensive teams as bad destinations.