Because talking heads assume he was having a career year simply to get paid and don't know about the other metrics that suggest he'll be fine.

people seem to judge almost exclusively on trends. i player has been poor for years, hence he will most likely be poor once again. the same is happening around here regarding edwin jackson. people need to see sustained years long success before they accept that a small sample size of great performance is not an aberration.

I said I didn't expect him to hit 46 every year, but theres no reason why he can't averge around 35 for the next few years, especially if Upton is hitting behind him and can really establish himself as a RBI/Power threat. Just consider Pena's 6 RBI, 2 HR game in which he accounted for the first 6 runs against the O's and got the bases loaded walk to give us the lead. He just stands out to me as a clutch individual.

And Edwin Jackson, while he may turn in a pretty good year, is a little different. He gets no respect because he hasn't earned any. Hopefully he will break out this year the way Pena did last year.

There was no guarantee that Pena would repeat 2007, there never can be with a situation like that, but there were some positive indicators. One, he decreased his strikeout rate a bit which allowed him to hit for a higher average. Two, he was productive within normal variance all season long after the slow start instead of having a really hot few weeks that boosted an otherwise lesser season. Three, he never hit well against lefties before yet over the season he learned and was very productive against them by the end, suggesting that he was developing his game further while having that monster season as opposed to it simply being a flukish increase in his expected production.

We still don't know of course if he'll repeat 2007, that was an incredible year. The signs are positive so far though, he did strike out a lot more than normal over the first two weeks but he was looking pretty jumpy at times and appears to have settled down over the weekend. He's still crushing the ball, making it pretty much inevitable that the singles and doubles will come, and the walk rate is very high. Hell, he has a .324 EqA right now despite the extremely low BA.

Edwin fits the profile of a player that could experience a breakout like Pena did last year. Very highly touted recruit that couldn’t figure a certain aspect of their game out (throwing stikes and hitting lefties), and once they figure that out they are very good players.

Re: Pena’s dropoff.

I think must people expect his average to come back down to earth as he has never been a .290 guy.