The Indians have placed catcher Roberto Perez on the injured list, skipper Terry Francona tells reporters including MLB.com’s Mandy Bell (via Twitter). Outfielder Daniel Johnson will take the open roster spot.
Perez is dealing with an injury to his right shoulder. There’s no indication as of yet as to the seriousness. For the time being, he’ll take at least a week off before determining the next steps.
The Indians had already brought in Beau Taylor to cover for Perez. Taylor will pair with Sandy Leon behind the plate. The Cleveland organization will surely at least consider adding another catcher to the 60-man pool.
The real concern here is that Perez could miss substantial time. That’d be a significant blow to the Indians. The 31-year-old is off to a rough start in 2020 but last year turned in 449 plate appearances of league-average hitting while delivering well-regarded glovework behind the dish.
I bet Lucroy wouldn’t turn down the Indians this time.
I would bet the Indians say no to Lucroy this time. They value defense at that position. Perhaps Russel Martin.
@Badfinger- My thoughts exactly, he is probably going to the Indians now. Great call.
Beau Taylor isn’t great, but he’s still about as good as most of the options that would probably be available to back up Leon at this point in time.
I’d think the most likely external addition would be another player of Beau Taylor’s ilk (AAA type with a little major league experience), as opposed to a Lucroy or Russell Martin type. I could also just see them adding Logan Ice to their player pool since he’s a pretty solid defender.
While a decent idea there is 1 unfortunate flaw – Logan Ice retired during Spring Training (back on 3/10/20)
If they were to go with an internal option it would probably be Kungkuan Giljegiljaw, who saw a lot of looks in original spring training. That being said I’m not sure of his status, he might have gone home to Taiwan which would make it difficult to get him here. The other option that would make sense is Gavin Collins, a 1B/3B/C that made it up to AA Akron last year. I’m not sure how well regarded his defense is.
If they were to look free agent, this would be a near ideal situation to bring Russel Martin in.
Someone check on Rube Baker’s availability.
“Well-regarded glovework”? How about Gold Glove? Geez…