2:50 PM: It appears the Indians will be without their starting catcher for quite some time. Manager Terry Francona told the media, including the Athletic’s Zack Meisel (Twitter links), that Cleveland expects Perez to be out for 8-10 weeks.
2:04 PM: Indians catcher Roberto Perez underwent surgery to repair the fractured ring finger on his right hand, tweets Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon-Journal. The team has yet to provide a timeline as to when Perez might be cleared to return to action, but Cleveland will now be without its top catcher for the foreseeable future.
Perez suffered the injury when he got crossed up with hard-throwing James Karinchak, and while he tried to play through the issue for awhile, he eventually was placed on the injured list earlier this week. He met with a specialist this week, Lewis notes, and clearly the surgical route wound up being the recommended course of treatment.
The injury initially occurred more than three weeks ago at a time when Perez was batting .238/.448/.524 with a pair of home runs through his first 29 plate appearances. Unsurprisingly, his bid to remain productive with a broken finger didn’t go particularly well; in 44 plate appearances since that time, Perez has just three hits and a dismal .075/.159/.175 slash.
Cleveland is temporarily losing one of the game’s best defensive catchers, although one of Perez’s primary competitors for that distinction is his own teammate, Austin Hedges. With Perez sidelined, Hedges figures to get the lion’s share of playing time. His bat isn’t likely to match that of a healthy Perez, as he’s mustered only a .118/.189/.294 output in 2021 and a .166/.243/.306 line overall dating back to 2019. Hedges’ glove, game-calling and framing should continue to work to the advantage of what is yet another high-quality Indians pitching staff, however.
That’s especially true given that he figures to share time with 37-year-old Rene Rivera, who was selected to the MLB roster to replace Perez. Rivera, a glove-first backstop himself, won’t provide much with the bat but will give Terry Francona another quality battery-mate for his pitchers.
Austin Hedges is the heir presumptive for Jeff Mathis, right? It just makes too much sense.
“Quality” is a bit of a stretch for Rivera, no?
Certainly a quality defensive catcher. Career (majors and minors) throws out 41% of SB attempts and .993 fpctg.
Cleveland prefers defensive catchers so he is a fit for the Indians.
I suspect we’ll never get an answer on this, but I do wonder if trying to play through it made things worse. Indians have a checkered recent history with letting guys play through things and then those injuries getting worse.
I don’t think “checkered recent history” is accurate. granted, a Cleveland.com article from 2019 notes that the Indians ranked 2nd in the American league in 2019 in lost time due to injury, but I’m not sure I can connect the dots that they “let guys play through injury”. if anything, the injuries to Kluber, Clevinger, and Carrasco after they left Cleveland show that the Indians know when to pull the plug in a player rather than letting them “play through”.
Andrew Miller comes to mind, they start and stopped him on rehab a bunch of times on the way out.
Lonnie Chisenhall would be another
Michael Brantley had a couple of injuries that nagged and left people asking if the Indians had pushed him when he wasn’t healthy
Bauer noted that he was pitching through an ankle injury in 2017 or 18, felt he had to because so many others were already out
It’s a pattern with them, if you pay enough attention you’ll notice it.
You left out Zimmer and Naquin…
I guess I can agree, somewhat, given the time frame. but to include Brantley, we are going back to 2016. so, in 5+ seasons we’re saying potentially 6 guys. I don’t think I’d count Chisenhall and Zimmer. Chisenhall was a frequently injured player his whole career and Zimmer just hasn’t performed enough to play. Bauer may have played through injury, but he hasn’t missed much time in his career, so it’s hard to say put him in the same category as the others who have missed substantial time in their careers.
I pay plenty of attention. I watch every Indians game I can and follow them closely. it doesn’t feel like a concerning pattern to me. But, there are a few instances mentioned that I would agree were possibly rushed back.
I’ll give you another peice of evidence: this is the Indians first IL placement of the year (not counting Hill to the 60, since that was due to an offseason car crash). They’re the only team with so few (Rosenthal had a table of this on The Athletic). They’ve had a few injuries happen that they’ve elected to keep guys up for.
Eddie Rosario just missed 2 or 3 games with an unspecified leg injury. Tito noted that he had been playing through it before that.
Jordan Luplow missed a few games with some hip discomfort. He certainly has cooled off in the last week or so. Seems related.
Whereas other teams are being extra cautious, the Indians are playing through. That seems to be an org philosophy, and I think that probably is a little on Tito. Tito is a manager that very much defers to the players, and the players always want to play.
Zimmer certainly should be counted, he’s a high prospect that showed promise at the MLB level and then it all derailed due to injuries. That he has not been in CF the past couple of seasons led to the constant revolving door out there.
being the youngest team by average age may have something to do with the lack of injured list stints. but I will give you that Tito defers to the players. but I think a big portion of players not being sent down or put on IL is the organization philosophy of not wanting to blow the team up and rebuild. they want to retool. so those option years are extremely valuable.
Zimmer has had every chance in the world to be the guy. He isn’t.
Because of the injuries of course…
Hedges is solid defensively. Offensively he’s not quite Danny Jansen bad but he’s pretty close.
PITIFUL EFFORT TONIGHT, TRIBE.
Anemic, but what do you expect from that lineup? One superstar and two good pieces surrounded by a pile of Punch & Judy hitters.
Yeah, the “hitting” is anemic, but I was speaking of their defense. To me, it’s been the most obvious flaw in this year’s team. Lackadaisical doesn’t even begin to describe it.