Cards Pick Up Penny

The St. Louis Cardinals have reportedly come to terms with RHP Brad Penny on a one-year, $7.5M deal, with $1.5M in possible incentives.

Following an injury-marred 2008 season with the Dodgers, Penny inked a one-year, $5M deal with the Red Sox last season. Brad ended up getting the boot in Boston in late August, then latched on with the Giants in September.

The oft-cited narrative for Penny’s ’09 campaign is this: he got eaten alive in the A.L., scurried back to the N.L. and then pitched well with San Francisco. However, his numbers suggest that he was neither the scrub of his Red Sox days nor the resurgent ace of his Giants tenure:

Penny’s 2009 peripherals, by team

Red Sox: 6.08 K/9, 2.87 BB/9, 2.12 K/BB, .333 BABIP, 64.4 LOB%, 4.49 FIP
Giants: 4.32 K/9, 1.94 BB/9, 2.22 K/BB, .211 BABIP, 81.8 LOB%, 4.35 FIP

Penny’s BABIP was 122 points higher with Boston. His rate of stranding runners on base was extremely low with the Red Sox, before going through the roof with San Francisco.

Overall, the 31 year-old posted a 4.46 FIP in 173.1 IP. That FIP was about four-tenths of a run below his actual 4.88 ERA. He whiffed 5.66 batters per nine innings, with 2.65 BB/9.

While Penny tosses a curveball, a splitter and the occasional slider, his success has always been predicated on his fastball. The 6-4, 240 pound Penny chucked his heater 71.1% of the time in 2009, one of the five highest rates among starters.

In ’08, he lost zip on his fastball as he dealt with persistent shoulder problems (92.4 MPH, tied for his lowest mark since 2002). But in ’09, Penny picked up that missing velocity (94 MPH). Take a look at his velocity chart. Penny was all over the map in 2008, but he steadily gained speed in 2009:

After posting a gruesome run value of -1.44 per 100 pitches in 2008, Penny’s fastball rebounded for a +0.22 runs/100 value this past season.

Penny and his rediscovered heater should enjoy New Busch Stadium, which is awfully kind to pitchers. Using ESPN’s park factor data, here are the three-year park factors for Busch III:

New Busch Stadium Park Factors, 2007-2009

Runs: 0.93
HR: 0.79
H: 0.99
2B: 0.92
3B: 0.91

(A park factor of 1.00 means that the park is neutral, favoring neither hitters nor pitchers. A park factor below one indicates a pitcher’s park, while a park factor over one means that the stadium favors hitters.)

Since 2007, Busch has suppressed run scoring by seven percent and homers by 21 percent, as compared to a neutral ballpark. The venue isn’t conducive to extra-base mayhem, either. Penny should come to love his new home digs.

While there’s certainly risk in signing a pitcher who essentially lost his whole 2008 season to a shoulder injury, Penny looks like a nice value for the Cardinals. CHONE projects Penny to post a 4.13 ERA in 159 innings, which would be worth 2.1 WAR. If a win costs roughly $4.4M on the free agent market, then the Cards would receive $9.2M in value from the club’s Penny pact.

Penny’s not a top-shelf arm. But as a good starter heading to a pitcher’s park in the N.L., his fantasy value just received a nice boost. It would be wise to pick up a Penny on draft day.