The Rockies have signed catcher Carlos Perez to a minor league contract, according to the team’s official transactions page. The 31-year-old was a minor league free agent, making him eligible to sign despite the ongoing lockout.
Originally signed by the Blue Jays, Perez was one of ten players involved in a trade between the Jays and the Astros in July of 2012 that was headlined by J.A. Happ. He was then part of a second notable deal, heading to the Angels alongside Nick Tropeano in exchange for Hank Conger after the 2014 season.
Perez appeared in the big leagues in four straight seasons, from 2015 to 2018. With the Angels in 2015, he got into 86 games and hit .250/.299/.346 for a wRC+ of 81. That marks his best season at the MLB level to date, as his offensive production slipped over the next few years, putting a dent in his playing time. In 212 total games with the Angels, Braves and Rangers, his slash line is .215/.257/.319, wRC+ of 56.
Although he didn’t get to the majors over the past few seasons, he had a promising campaign in the minors last year. After signing a minor league deal with the A’s, he played 97 Triple-A games and hit 31 home runs, slashing .269/.337/.572 for a wRC+ of 116.
The Rockies currently have just two catchers on their 40-man roster, Elias Diaz and Dom Nunez. Bringing Perez into the fold will allow them to have a veteran safety net on hand in the event of an injury. Nunez also has options and a career strikeout rate of 35.3% in his 97 MLB games thus far. If the Rockies decide to send him down to the minors, there could be room for a veteran like Perez to step up and fill a backup role in the big leagues.
So these are the kind of moves we can expect to see from the Rockies. For some reason they think they have a contending team, so I don’t expect many pick ups of greater impact. They’ll do enough to keep from getting a top draft pick, but the Diamondbacks have a better chance of winning the west than they do.
These are the kind of moves you can expect from any team during the lockout. No other kind is allowed.
Hell, we see plenty of these kind of moves when there *isn’t* a lockout. We just don’t – ya know – talk about them as much.
Monfort doesn’t think he has a contending team, he wants to build an as cheap as possible 75-85 team every year to pretend being comepetive, occasionally maybe making the post season with some luck to make the stadium full enough to make profit. As long the rockies are not a 90+ loss team usually attendance numbers in colorado are fine and monfort is making profit.
That being said that move is a normal “quad A” depth move that every team is doing, a guy to fill the AAA roster and maybe come up for a couple weeks to replace the Major league back up in case of injury.
Monfort is bad at judging talent, but he is most definitely not cheap. His spending in relation to his market size is among the highest in baseball.
Cheap owner or not, this deal makes a lot of sense for the Rockies. With only two catchers on their 40-man, one of whom who strikes out in more than 1 out of every 3 at bats, why not take a chance on a veteran who slugged 31 HRs in 97 AAA last season and stash him until he is needed? Sure, he played in the hitter-friendly PCL, but 31 dingers in less than 100 games is pretty darn impressive, regardless of which minor league level or league it happened in. If I recall correctly, he’s pretty decent with the glove too. I’m actually surprised he lasted this long. Maybe his asking price was higher than most teams were willing to pay for a AAA backup. He only struck out 63 times in 376 ABs too.
Good pick-up, wonder if the O’s were considering Perez to help with Adley’s progression?
Perez is a reminder of how bad Angels Catchers have been since Bengie Molina left
He hit a walk-off home run in his first major league game. That’s what I’ll always remember him for.
When Sean Murphy was struggling, I was hoping Perez would have been called up instead of Aramis Garcia. Perez has massive power, and 31 isn’t too old. See Stephen Vogt, for example
I haven’t heard or seen the name Hank Conger for awhile. I remember when he was top prospect.
Conger was hired as 1B/Catching coach for the Twins