The D-backs have selected the contract of veteran left-handed reliever Oliver Perez and, in a corresponding roster move, designated fellow southpaw Caleb Baragar for assignment, according to the team’s transactions page.
Perez, 40, joined the D-backs on a minor league deal on March 21 and has logged 3 1/3 scoreless innings with just one hit allowed thus far during Cactus League play. This will mark his second stint with the D-backs, for whom he also pitched in 2014-15.
Perez has spent the past four seasons in Cleveland, pitching to a combined 2.57 ERA with a 28.5% strikeout rate against a 6.8% walk rate over the life of 94 2/3 innings. Only 3 2/3 of those innings came in 2021, however. Perez was cut loose early in the year, and he spent the rest of the season pitching with los Toros de Tijuana in the Mexican League. He’d been slated to return to los Toros in 2022, signing there during the lockout and announcing his intention to retire after the season. However, once it became clear that the season could get underway only about a week later than originally scheduled, Perez reversed course and signed on with a Major League organization.
It still seems as though this could be the final year of a lengthy and largely successful Major League career for Perez, who had a roller-coaster run as a starting pitcher early in his career but reinvented himself as a reliever in his 30s. Since moving to the ’pen on a full-time basis in 2012, Perez carries a 3.45 ERA in 350 innings spread across five different organizations.
Turning to the 27-year-old Baragar, this marks his second DFA of the spring. A ninth-round pick of the Giants back in 2016, he’s seen Major League time with San Francisco in each of the past two seasons, pitching to a combined 2.78 ERA with an 18.8% strikeout rate, a 9.1% walk rate and a 21.7% ground-ball rate.
Despite that strong bottom-line run prevention, Baragar has now been designated for assignment both by the Giants and by the D-backs, who claimed him off waivers last month. Fielding-independent marks don’t paint as rosy a picture as Baragar’s more rudimentary ERA, due largely to his pedestrian K-BB% and an extremely low home-run rate — the latter of which doesn’t mesh particularly well with his sky-high 58.1% fly-ball rate.
Over the past two seasons, nearly 14% of the fly-balls put in play by Major League hitters have gone for home runs, whereas Baragar has seen just 5.3% of his flies clear the fence. Playing his home games at the spacious Oracle Park and inducing pop-ups at an above-average rate have both surely helped him, but it nevertheless seems inevitable that he’s in for some regression with regard to that minuscule homer-to-flyball ratio.
Baragar, who’ll turn 28 this weekend, has multiple minor league options remaining, so he could be looked at by another club as a possible depth option in the bullpen. He’s been tagged for an 8.01 ERA and surrendered nine home runs through 30 1/3 innings in a hitter-friendly Triple-A setting, but he carries a 4.06 ERA and respectable strikeout and walk percentages in 421 minor league innings on the whole. The D-backs will have a week to trade him or attempt to pass him through waivers.
Oliver Perez is still active? Wow! Thought he was done years ago
Life finds a way….
Maybe having to play in that wonderful place Tijuana for a bit last year gave him the drive needed to make an MLB roster this spring.
At 40 years old going home to Mexico to play ball gives him the drive needed to do what’s he’s been doing his whole life? He had the drive last year, the dumb mlb rules drove out the LOOGYs from the game.
The bottom of the NL West is gonna be godawful this season. Between the directionless Rockies and rebuilding Dbacks, the other 3 teams will have close to 40 “gimme” games in division. Wouldn’t at all be surprised to see the Dodgers win close to 110 while the Padres and Giants go for 95+ (assuming the Giants don’t regress as much as expected).
The Rockies finished 5 games behind Padres, 2 behind Mets, 3 games better than last years Cubs. I’m not sure they’re this bottom dweller everyone makes them out to be. They only really lost Gray and Story but got Bryant and Grichuk. The organization is awful, constantly questionable moves, but their roster doesn’t scream 100+ losses like Arizona, Pittsburgh, Baltimore…
@SpendNuttinWinNuttin Normally I find fault with many of your post and biased opinions of Pittsburgh. But this time your right. 52-110 for the Pirates seems about right. Growing pains for some younger players and weeding out the remaining Huntington left overs, seems to be the course. Much like last year, there will be a cycle of players and some releases. It’s going to be a setup for a more productive year next year.
I expect you to bring up again, “Nutting will not spend to help the club.” We’ve gone round for round and the Pirates are cycling through their prospects right now to find a winning formula. Even I wouldn’t invest 50-60 million (even with Art Moreno bank account) into an unfinished product. Just to be another Phillies or Mets organization trying to cut corners but comes up empty.
Let’s goooooo Oliver!
This guy will not pass through the Mets. They terribly need left-handed relief pitching.
Nah, they’ll roll with Shreve. I don’t see them bringing anyone else aboard unless they decide to put deGrom on the 60-day.
Wow Oliver Perez that is a name from the Past. The Mets couldn’t get him to go to the Minors as he had too much service Time and he refused. How is he still pitching?
Has Fangraphs calculated how many days Service Time Oliver can afford before he owes tax on his Social Security?
Baragar was really good prior to the sticky substance crackdown… unfortunately it seems like he was a spider tack merchant
I remember when he was tried out at a starter and some believe he could be. Oh that was the days we saw pen arms as starters in Pittsburgh. Kris Benson was another one. The system was so bad that you couldn’t give away the players. Better days…..
Oliver Perez’s first season of professional ball was in 1999 as a 17 year old. Really cool to see him still pitching, has to be one of the last players left in MLB that played in pro ball in the 90’s.
AZ is a subsidiary of AARP
I read “21.7% ground-ball rate” and thought for sure that had to be a typo. Somehow, it is not. In the last 10 years, among pitchers with at least 40 innings, only two others have had a ground ball rate lower than that.
Here’s hoping the A’s pickup Caleb. Stats look pretty decent and could be a solid addition to the BP.