The Pirates announced this afternoon that catcher Michael Pérez has cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Indianapolis (via Rob Biertempfel of the Athletic). He’ll have the right to refuse that assignment in favor of minor league free agency.
The Bucs designated Pérez for assignment last week in order to open 40-man roster space for prospects whom they didn’t want to leave available in the Rule 5 draft. That could end his Pittsburgh tenure after just one season, as Pérez joined the organization after the 2020 campaign via waiver claim from the Rays. The 29-year-old tallied 231 plate appearances as Jacob Stallings’ primary back-up, hitting just .143/.221/.290 with seven home runs.
Pérez hasn’t hit much over his four-season MLB career, owning just a .181/.253/.302 cumulative line. He’s rated as a slightly below-average pitch framer, per Statcast, but his career 26.8% caught stealing rate is almost three percentage points higher than this year’s league average mark.
Should not come as a surprise to any fan of the Pirates. Made me long for Chris Stewart’s bat, which I didn’t think was possible.
I hope BC has set his sights on an upgrade here but the free agent market for catchers is horrific. Michael Perez is better than nearly all of the free agents, and he’s a LH hitter which is a nice complement to Stallings. They should call Jason Kendall and see what he’s up to. He’s only 47, which is just a bit older than some of the free agents. Either that or bring up a pup because the market is so abysmal.
spotrac.com/mlb/free-agents/catcher/
In the grand scheme of things, backup catcher has to be very low on the priority list for the Pirates right now. Stallings is above average, and he can hold down the fort until Henry Davis is ready. Hopefully in 2023. Until then, just grab whoever to play the position, can you really do any worse than a guy who can’t even bat the weight of a middle schooler?
I get it, but the #2 catcher starts two games per week, which amounted to over 200 AB in 2021. That’s not insignificant. They do have to put a man behind the plate on Stallings’ days off. The idea that they should just put “whoever” back there is not awesome. My original point was that the free agent catchers were not very good and most didn’t hit the weight of an elementary school kid (if we’re using the weight of a child analogy). Pérez is a better option than all but 2 or 3 of the free agents. If that seems hard to believe, check out my above link. Sorry – I don’t mean to beat a dead horse. I just feel that the #2 catcher is as important as an other guy on the bench.
I still think it was an odd move to DFA him with nothing lined up as a replacement and nothing really in house at the moment. I’m in 100 percent agreement the C market is awful. He can’t hit, but most backups can’t hit anyways. I thought it would have been a good idea to run it back since they aren’t going to contend anyways. I saw in another article he got 70 games, which seems high since stallings only missed a week.
You guys want Reese McGuire back?
He sucks. I can’t believe this is the type of garbage the pirates think are going to help the team
well they just designated him so…
The pitchers looked comfortable with him and that is the only thing that matters at this point. Maybe they will upgrade. Doesn’t matter. They have enough quality catchers in the system that someone should emerge to go with davis. With how active BC is depth shouldn’t be a problem going forward.