Welcome back, Carlos... kinda

I’d much rather the 3-hole be filled by the unsigned player making it, indeed, a hole: Casey Kotchman. He hit .306 in the 2011 season for the Rays, as opposed to Pena’s .225 with the Chicago Cubs. The two were neck-and-neck on doubles and triples. Pena’s upside: more homeruns—28 to Kotchman’s 10. But with Pena’s power comes the propensity to strike out: a whopping 161 Ks vs. Kotchman’s 66. Pena also had more RBI, but that argument doesn’t acknowledge that RBI are all about the hitter before you.

So let’s talk defense. In 153 games, Pena picked notched 1116 putouts and 88 assists, while committing 8 errors, for a .993 fielding percentage. Kotchman putout 1119 men with 80 assists and only 2 errors, a .998 percentage, the best in the majors. Conclusion: the difference between their gloves is negligible, with a slight edge to Kotchman.

What this comes down to is money—imagine that, it being the Rays and all. Pena will be paid $7.25 million for 2012, a good discount from the $10 million the Cubs gave him the year prior. The Rays likely could have signed Kotchman for substantially less—the most he’s ever made was $3.5 million.

As a citizen of Tampa Bay, I was sad to see such a great human being leave the area in 2011. His presence was missed. As someone who watches and writes about Rays baseball 162 days of the year, I was happy to see his 158 strikeouts in 2010 go somewhere else.

At the end of the day I am glad to see him back and hope he doesn’t swing a bat at me for writing this: it could potentially hurt a lot, but he also might miss.