Jeremy Peña Had Career Year Proving Himself as Astros MVP for 2025

Peña was coming off a 2024 in which he played a career high 157 games and bounced back from a down sophomore season. He set a career high with 160 hits, stole 20 bases and even set a then career high .266 batting average.

Despite having a bit of a bounce back, it looked like he had settled into the player that he was, which was a league average hitter and good, not great, defensive shortstop. He had reached heights in his rookie season that he just hadn't replicated yet.

He became a completely different player in 2025. Peña set a career high in each slashline category with a .304 average, .363 on-base and .477 slugging. It was really the on-base that was a game changer for Peña, who's career high previous to this was .324.

The 27-year-old increased his walk rate from 3.8 percent to 6.4 percent, a huge reason why his on-base percentage was up. Peña wasn't hitting the ball any harder, but the game changer was his 30.2 percent squared up rate, according to Baseball Savant, which was up five percent from 2024.

Peña put it all together at the plate, hitting 30 doubles and 17 home runs, driving in 64 runs and posting an .840 OPS, by far his career high. He previous high was in his rookie season, when he had a .715 OPS.

He turned himself into a superstar hitter which really unlocked some possibilities in the Astros lineup for next season.

Not only was his hitting improved, but he was one of the best defensive shortstops in 2025. As a rookie, Peña was a 92nd percentile defender by outs above average, according to Savant. That took a major dip in 2023, when he was in the 75th percentile, and then he hit a new low in 2024, winding up in the 28th percentile.

He turned the clock back and became an even better defender, putting himself in the 94th percentile in that same category. He was tied for sixth among all shortstops, a huge improvement on his 2024 campaign.

Peña became a standout on both sides of the ball, leading the Astros' position players in bWAR at 5.6. The next highest was catcher Yainer Diaz at 2.7. An All-Star for the first time, it put Peña in a whole different category of player, rightfully deserving of the team MVP. If he can continue to play like he did in 2025, the Astros have another player to build around alongside Yordan Alvarez.