The Astros have announced the signing of outfielder Eury Perez to a minor league pact. Houston also added righty Cesar Valdez and invited both to major league training camp this spring.
Perez, 25, received his first chance at extended big league action last year with the Braves. Over 133 plate appearances, he slashed .269/.331/.303 and contributed three stolen bases. He was non-tendered by Atlanta earlier this winter.
While he’s always been light on power, the center field-capable Perez has shown quite a bit of speed in the minors and owns a .307/.358/.402 batting line in 1,115 Triple-A plate appearances. He was once a fairly highly-regarded prospect with the Nationals and could still have some function in the majors if he can reach base enough.
The 30-year-old Valdez saw brief MLB action back in 2010, but has pitched exclusively overseas since 2012. His return to affiliated ball was likely driven by his 2015 performance in Mexico. Working for the Olmecas de Tobasco, Valdez threw 160 2/3 innings in 23 starts and racked up 9.0 K/9 against 1.6 BB/9.
The ‘Stros also announced their non-roster spring camp invites, which include some notable names from the minor league system. Among them are recent draft picks Alex Bregman and Derek Fisher as well as prospects A.J. Reed, Tony Kemp, Colin Moran, and J.D. Davis.
I’m not a fan of the landing spot for Perez. He has some serious potential to be a Ben Revere type (maybe even better due to the fact that he gets on base more and has more power, albeit marginally more) He really doesn’t have much of an opening here as the outfield has 4 above average players in Springer, Marisnick, Rasmus and Gomez and the injury replacements likely ahead of him are Preston Tucker and Andrew Aplin. He’ll be lucky to see time in the bigs this year even if he hits well in the minors, unless he is purchased by someone else as we saw with Clayton Richard or Gregorio Petit last season.
These are typical Jeff Luhnow signings. AAA depth and if injuries or a trade happens, then they have a chance to contribute. From an Astros fan perspective, I like both signings.
Eury Perez is a solid bench player. He can do a lot to help you win a ball game. He is a poor man’s Gregor Blanco.
The Braves would rather give Ian Krol a 40 man spot than Eury.
Nice pickup, he’s a solid hitter with good range.
Braves have too many outfielders. If they had traded Bourn I’m sure Eury would be on the roster. Also no one else seems willing to give him a 40-man spot, so why should the Braves do so?
I wonder if this opens the door to the Astros trading one of their many OF for a starting pitcher. There has been speculation of them doing so for a while now. Nice pickups. Surprised their 1B prospect Tyler White didn’t get a spring invite. He will probably be called up before Reed to give him time in AAA
The stros did invite Tyler White to spring training. Complete list of position players besides the ones mentioned in article above includes White, Joe Sclafani, Tyler Heinemann (AAA), Jon Kemmer and Carlos Perez (AA) and pitchers Brady Rodgers, Chris Devenski, Jake Buchanan, James Hoyt, Jordan Jankowski (AAA) and Brendan McCurry (AA).
Is there a set amount of players teams are allowed to invite to Spring Training? Or is it just as many as the team wants to invite?
I think it is as many as they want. They invite the entire 40 man roster and then invite as many non-roster players as they feel necessary. For example the Astros currently have 38 players on their 40 man roster, all invited, and have added 19 non-roster invitees, totaling 57. They have a couple of 40 man roster spots open for major league free agent signings or trades and may bring in another non-roster invitee (e.g. minor league free agent) to put them up to 60. I think most teams bring around 60-65 to camp.
I wish we would of kept Perez but I know he wouldn’t get any playing time in Atlanta hope he does well