Oliver Pérez came on in the sixth inning of yesterday’s Indians game to strike out Royals first baseman Ryan O’Hearn. In the process, he locked in $2.75MM, as Zack Meisel of the Athletic points out (via Twitter).
Cleveland’s biggest signee of this past offseason, Pérez was guaranteed just $2.5MM for 2019. However, that pact came with a 2020 option that vested for $2.75MM yesterday, as the lefty appeared in his 55th game of the season. It would escalate to $3MM if he entered 60 contests.
As MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk noted when taking inventory of every vesting option around baseball, Pérez seems likely to take home that $3MM maximum salary, with over a month remaining to get into five more games. Given his production, the club will no doubt be happy to keep cutting the checks.
While he hasn’t been quite as otherworldly in 2019 as he was last season, Pérez has been more than effective, again putting up sparkling strikeout (29.3%) and walk (6.1%) rates with run prevention numbers to match (2.83 ERA). While that production has been in short stints (he’s logged just 35 innings in those 55 games), his per-batter dominance has been a boon to a bullpen that’s been the league’s best at keeping runs off the board. There’s no doubt the 38 year-old will be happy to be back next season, as he recently told Meisel he planned to continue playing regardless of his contract status.
If there’s any reason for concerns about this development, it could be that pitchers with Pérez’s skillset will be diminished by the forthcoming three-batter minimum for relief pitchers. Left-on-left specialists, particularly, seem most threatened by the rule, which is likely to kick off in 2020 and could enable opposing managers to stack their lineup with opposite-handed pinch hitters to put the pitcher at a platoon disadvantage. While Pérez handled right-handers reasonably well between 2017-2018, they’ve teed off on him this season, and pitchers as reliant on a slider as Pérez is tend to have sizable platoon splits.
That said, $2.75MM (or $3MM) remains a reasonable price to pay for a pitcher who’s been so effective in his time in Cleveland. In pursuit of a playoff spot, whether it be the AL Central or Wild Card game, expect Terry Francona to lean heavily on the wily southpaw down the stretch.
I think Olli was pitching back in the 70’s, it’s been so long. At this point, he’s a natural to re-join the Pirates next year.
The article just clearly stated his option for next year vested and is going to be an Indian again…
A poor joke on my part. Apologies
He averages 3 batters faced per game this season so that dumb rule won’t have that much of an effect on him.
He mostly faces lefties, if you pinch hit a lefty for a righty the you can’t change him for right hand pitchers. Those specialist who get same side hitters will become obsolete
As with almost any reliever in baseball, as a lefty he is called in against lefties. And back to my original point, the new/dumb rule about facing 3 hitters, he averages 3 hitter/game so he’ll be fine.
That was pointless
I don’t think that’s true, is it? 55 games but only 33 innings? But even if it was, I doubt that rule would really impact too many pitchers. Managers would probably just not let them start an inning if they thought they were going to face too many opposite hitters. They can only pitch 0.1 or 0.2 innings if they finish the inning.
He’s faced 147 batters in 55 games, which is slightly under 3/game, the rule mandating 3 hitters won’t make much of a difference.
The rule is absolutely dumb, if a manager wants to waste a roster spot on somebody that pitches to 1 batter and exits, pinch runs and exits or pinch hits and exits then so be it.
that rule really is terrible even if im not a big fan of the loogy. limiting teams to one switch during the inning would be good, or something of the sort.
I can’t believe I was 14 years old when I met a then 20 year old rookie pitcher for the Padres, who spent some time after a game saying hello to fans back at Qualcomm stadium.
17 years later, still going strong. You don’t see this type of longevity in the game anymore, so it’s nice when you have an outlier who is still putting up solid numbers.
I used to work on the same blocked which David Wright lived on in the Flatiron District of Manhattan. Perez stayed with Wright for a while. Always gave each other the “bro nod” and had small talk a few times. Him and Wright are cool dudes.
I remember Pérez in 2004 when he was the only good starter on a poor Pirates team.
They got him and Jason Bay for Brian Giles in one of the few good deals made during that Pirate era.
He has had an interesting career.A year or two of good,a year or two of bad.
He was one of the pitchers that I wanted the Pirates to pick up last winter.Even guys like this can have a positive effect on the fan base hopes for the coming year.Liriano has actually done a decent job,but I think that he is tiring out.