Brayan Pena: 2016 VEB Projections

Editor's Note: Two years ago, Site Manager Ben Humphrey asked readers to provide predictions for Cardinals baseball players. Last year, he renewed that request, and although Ben is in blogger retirement, we at VEB are re-renewing the request to predict how the Cardinals will do.

We will not get to every player on the 40-man roster, but we will get to most. There will not be a defined order for the players, but players most assured of playing time will go first so we can let some of Spring Training play out. We will ask for standard stats. For hitters: Plate Appearances, Home Runs, RBI (gasp!), Runs, Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, Slugging Percentage, and WAR. As trying to figure wOBA on is very difficult, we will use a rough approximation based on OBP and SLG ((1.7*OBP+SLG)/3). For pitchers: Starts, Games, Innings Pitched, K/9, BB/9, ERA, FIP, WAR, and Saves.

Next up: Brayan Pena

Yesterday, we took a look at Yadier Molina and asked for his projections on the season. It is likely that how you feel Molina will fare this season will inform your opinion of Pena, particularly when it comes to playing time. The Cardinals had been going with Tony Cruz as Yadi's backup the past few seasons, but when injuries hit Molina, the Cardinals showed they were not entirely comfortable with Cruz as a replacement. Enter Pena, who has a lot of experience as a backup, and the Cardinals committed to him with a two-year contract.

Pena does not offer much with the bat, but will be an upgrade over Cruz as our own John Fleming wrote. He has gotten close to full-time plate appearances over the past two years. This is how he did last year.

You can find his Steamer, ZiPS, and FanGraphs Depth Charts projection on his Fangraphs player page.

How will he do?

Thanks for your help. It is possible you might have missed a few projections so far, please visit our projections section or click on the links to the rest of the players below as they only take a few minutes. Not sure if you have filled one out for someone? Visit this link to see.

Matt Carpenter 2016 Projections

Jhonny Peralta 2016 Projections

Trevor Rosenthal 2016 Projections

Matt Holliday 2016 Projections

Mike Leake 2016 Projections

Kevin Siegrist 2016 Projections

Kolten Wong 2016 Projections

Adam Wainwright 2016 Projections

Stephen Piscotty 2016 Projections

Jedd Gyorko 2016 Projections

Seth Maness 2016 Projections

Jonathan Broxton 2016 Projections

Michael Wacha 2016 Projections

Randal Grichuk 2016 Projections

Alex Reyes 2016 Projections

Tommy Pham 2016 Projections

Carlos Martinez 2016 Projections

Brandon Moss 2016 Projections

Matt Adams 2016 Projections

Tim Cooney 2016 Projections

Yadier Molina 2016 Projections