The Rangers have moved left-hander Martin Perez to the bullpen for the remainder of the season and have informed his camp that the team is not currently planning on picking up his $7.5MM club option for the 2019 season (Twitter links via Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News). MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan quotes Texas GM Jon Daniels on the matter (Twitter link):
“We told Martin that if the decision had to be made today, we probably wouldn’t exercise the option. It’s possible we could still work something out for him to continue his career here. We want to take this time to evaluate him in a bullpen role.”
It’s not hard to see why the Rangers are strongly leaning toward paying Perez a $750K buyout, as the lefty has been rocked for a 6.95 ERA in 68 2/3 innings this season. The 27-year-old also missed a significant portion of the season while recovering from surgery on his right (non-throwing) elbow that he underwent this past offseason.
Perez does have somewhat of a track record in Texas, having pitched to a 4.37 ERA over the life of 638 innings from 2013-17. But while Perez was a source of serviceable innings prior to the 2018 season while earning a relatively modest $16.8MM during his current contract, he’s also never lived up to the fanfare that led to him widely being considered a top 50 (and, at one point, top 20) prospect in the game.
Perez has made just six relief appearances in his career — all coming back when he was a rookie in 2012. It seems unlikely that a month of relief work, no matter how encouraging, would convince the Rangers to pay that fairly hefty sum. Perhaps, however, an encouraging performance could lead the two sides to hammer out a new contractual arrangement that would give Perez the chance to remain in the organization at a lower rate. If not, he’ll reach free agency for the first time this winter, albeit on the heels of the worst season of his seven-year career in the Majors.
Every year it looks as if he is going to put it all together but just can’t quite figure it out.
Not really sure what they’re going to gain from this, yes he’s been awful as of late but then again who in the rangers rotation other than Mike Minor hasn’t?
Definite bounce back candidate with another club. Nearly everyone that gets out of Texas and away from Doug Brocail sees some level of improvement.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks Doug Brocail is trash.
Cole Hamels performance with the Cubs versus his output with the Rangers should be reason alone to kick Brocail to the curb.
I heard on the radio yesterday actually that Brocail is the main reason for his success with the cubs so far. (I assume this is true, but don’t know for sure). Apparently a month or so ago, he and Hamels sat down and broke down every single aspect of his pitching, from tempo, to mechanics, etc. And supposedly Hamels is attributing this new run of success to that overhaul. My question, was why not do this in the off-season so maybe he could have had some of that success before the trade that might have gotten us more than a bag of baseballs in return.
Lmao yeah riiiiiight
True dat!
Martin Perez is a head case. He is his own worst enemy. He may bounce back with another team but it’s going to take a lot of maturity for him to be successful and that will take time. And who wants to pay a $7.5 million salary in hopes that will happen quickly? We’re better off letting him walk.
Can we all just say BUST together?!
He has 750 big league innings with an ERA+ that’s barely below the league average. Perez isn’t near what his ceiling was projected to be and may not even have been an especially good pitcher to this point in his career, but there are an enormous amount of top pitching prospects who never even sniff that type of output.
I wouldn’t all him a bust. Most prospects don’t live up to the hype that surrounds them. He’s at least had a largely serviceable career until 2018, whereas the majority of the game’s current top prospects probably won’t have a career of even this note.
$7.5 million option? Hasta
la vista…
If only another Martin in the AL had a 750k buy out …. Russell…cough cough
Perez to the M’s for Felix. Win win.
Felix is struggling but he is worth more to the M’s than Perez.
2017 was really bad too.
Perez had multiple chances to be apart of rangers rotation. Some small market team will pick him up and he will be awesome with them. Ranger pitchers always do better when they get away from Texas.