The Nationals on Friday formally announced the completion of their two-year deal with left-handed reliever Oliver Perez. The veteran southpaw will reportedly take home a $7MM guarantee, paying him $3MM in 2016 and $4MM in 2017.
The 34-year-old Perez, a client of Scott Boras, figures to step into the role that was occupied by Matt Thornton over the past season-and-a-half in D.C. — that of a left-handed specialist. Perez is coming off somewhat of a mixed season, as he was excellent in 29 frames for the D-backs in a similar lefty specialist capacity before struggling following a trade to the Astros.
All told, he pitched to a 4.17 ERA with 51 strikeouts against 15 walks in 49 innings last season and held opposing left-handers to a meager .185/.235/.283 batting line. Of course, on the flip side of that dominance, right-handed batters tattooed Perez for a .310/.417/.465 triple slash.
Perez will be part of a largely restructured Nationals bullpen that will include recent trade acquisition Trevor Gott as well as new signees Shawn Kelley and Yusmeiro Petit. The Nats are also said to be looking at potential trades of Jonathan Papelbon and Drew Storen, creating the distinct possibility that first-year manager Dusty Baker will enter the 2016 campaign with a vastly different relief corps than the one that proved to be fairly problematic for the Nationals in 2015.
MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez was the first to report the deal and the terms (Twitter link). Jon Heyman of CBS Sports provided the contract breakdown.
Lol. Yes get worse.
Perez had absolutely owned LH hitters, and had a much better FIP than his ERA.
His whole season got derailed by a bad month or two in Houston.
Solid pick up
Agreed.
I would rather watch Denard Spann pitch! What a failure! What a stupid signing.
Funny- I saw the headline and my thought was, “A two year deal to do what?” I can’t believe Perez is only 34. He’s lefthanded. The guy could sign contracts for another 6 years or more!
Amazing to have watched the career of Perez, starting from a 20 year old wild starting pitcher with great raw stuff with the Padres, having some success later as a SP, and reinventing himself to provide years of valuable contributions to bullpens. Oh, to be a LHP!
I will add though that it surprises me that a guy who is projected in 2016 to pitch 58 innings at a 1.33 WHIP and 3.88 ERA gets a $7m deal.
BRef’s projections are almost complete guess work, don’t put too much confidence into them.
Will never forget watching his first start with the Pirates after the Giles trade. He looked like he was going to own the NL for years to come.
Bar-none there is no other current pitcher in the major leagues that is more entertaining to watch when he pitches. He changes his delivery almost every time he throws the ball. He has really used that to his success.
Odrisamer despagne does the same this with his motions, albeit to less success. I wish that MLB the show would implement this so that these pitchers could be so much more dominant online lol
Would this mean that they’re losing interest in O’Day?
no, just replacing Thornton.
Looks to be the end of J.Papelbon era in Washington. Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya !!
Guess this will help set a price for lefty relievers. If OP is worth 3.5 MM/year, how much will Bastardo and Sipp be worth? 5-6 MM?
Wish I could get a job where my mediocre performance earned me $3.5 million a year.
Smart addition, plus Oliver will have added incentive to beat the Mets. What goes around comes around.
It will be fun to watch the nine games of Ollie being heckled and laughed at when he can’t throw a strike in Flushing. I saw him try to pitch the second MLB exhibition game at Citi. He was so bad that the game was out of hand by the time the concession figured out how to grill a chicken breast. By the time I got back to my seat, it was a AAA game. He’s a disaster waiting to happen in every appearance. Changing his delivery for every pitch also means that he cannot repeat what works.
He was such a disaster.
I was actually under the impression we picked him up off waivers. Thanks for correcting my memory.