The 39-27 Royals remain one of the most surprising stories of the season’s first couple months. While Kansas City certainly expected to be better than they were last year, they’ve played well enough to have a chance to top last season’s 56 wins by the All-Star Break.
Any turnaround that drastic is going to have multiple causes. Among the biggest (and perhaps least anticipated) developments for Kansas City is a massive first half from their franchise catcher. Salvador Perez’s career looked to be on the decline heading into his age-34 season. He has turned back the clock with his best start in at least three years.
Perez heads into this week’s matchup with the AL-leading Yankees carrying a .299/.372/.491 batting line across 261 plate appearances. He has connected on 10 homers and already picked up 15 doubles after hitting between 21 and 24 two-baggers in each of the last five full seasons. While he’s dipped into a 3-25 slump to this point in June, Perez turned in well above-average production in both April and May. Among catchers with 100+ plate appearances, he ranks fifth in on-base percentage and fourth in slugging. He’s fourth at the position in overall offensive output after accounting for the difficulty of hitting in K.C.’s spacious Kauffman Stadium.
The OBP is particularly impressive. Perez has always had big power, particularly relative to his counterparts behind the plate. He hasn’t excelled at consistently getting on base, though. Perez is an extremely aggressive hitter who has never been keen on waiting out free passes. He has only finished six of his 13 career seasons with an on-base percentage north of .300. He’s not only comfortably above that pace, he’s on track for what’ll be the best OBP of his career (and by a wide margin, if one excludes his 39-game rookie season in 2011 and the 37 games he played in 2020).
Perez hasn’t suddenly become a selective hitter a decade and a half into his MLB career. Among batters with 100+ PAs, only the recently designated Harold Ramírez has chased pitches outside the strike zone more frequently. Perez is eighth in overall swing rate. He’s as aggressive as ever. Yet he’s been more locked in this season than he has for the last couple years. Perez has made contact on 75.3% of his swings, a nearly four-point jump relative to last year and his highest rate since 2020. It’s not a coincidence that he’s striking out less often than he has in nearly 10 years.
It’s a strong rebound for a player who looked to be on the downswing. Perez had arguably the worst season of his career in 2023. While he played in 140 games and hit 23 homers, his .422 slugging percentage was his second lowest. He hit .255 while reaching base at a .292 clip that were both below his career norms. FanGraphs graded Perez as a sub-replacement player in 2023; Baseball Reference had him marginally better than replacement level but with a personal-low 0.5 wins.
That’s a reflection not only in his down work at the plate but a longstanding decline in his defensive metrics. Pitch framing metrics have never been keen on Perez’s receiving skills. He’d typically done an excellent job at controlling the running game, but that evaporated last season. Perez threw out only nine of 63 attempted basestealers, a 14.3% rate that was well south of the 20% league mark.
There are crucial aspects of catcher defense (game-calling, managing a pitching staff) that can’t be captured by public metrics. Perez has always been highly-regarded for those qualities. That said, his 2023 performance in the quantifiable parts of catching was not impressive. It looked in line with an overall declining career trajectory.
Perez has rebounded on that side of the ball as well. Statcast has rated him as an average pitch framer in 321 innings. He’s 6-19 in cutting down stolen base attempts. Perez was behind the plate for 39 wild pitches over 738 1/3 frames last season; that’s down to seven wild pitches in more than 40% of the innings this year. It’s tough to fully separate that from the team’s much improved pitching staff — the Royals brought in Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo and are getting a full season from Cole Ragans — but Perez’s defensive production has improved.
The Royals have slightly reduced Perez’s responsibilities. They’re mixing him in at first base a little more often than they did last season, a luxury afforded by having a quality #2 catcher in Freddy Fermin. Perhaps that’s also playing a part in Perez’s resurgent production.
In any case, the former World Series MVP’s huge first couple months should send him to the All-Star Game for the ninth time in his career. It’s a key reason the Royals are within four games of the Guardians for the AL Central lead and sit firmly in the second Wild Card position.
Perez’s return to form is also a welcome boost for a front office that made what was then a franchise-record investment three seasons ago. Kansas City signed him to a four-year, $82MM extension in Spring Training 2021 that preemptively covered the 2022-26 campaigns. Perez made $18MM in ’22, $20MM for the following two seasons, and is set for a $22MM salary next year. There’s also a $2MM buyout on a $13.5MM team option for 2026. That contract seemed well underwater as recently as a few months ago, but it’s a reasonable sum for this level of production.
The Royals don’t need to concern themselves with Perez’s long-term future, though it’s hard to envision him playing anywhere else at this point of his career. The immediate focus is on getting to the postseason for the first time since their 2015 championship. Perez is the only remaining player from that team and, even in his mid-30s, is playing a key role in trying to get Kansas City back to the playoffs nearly a decade later.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Don’t ever doubt Salvy.
The Royals aren’t a surprise. They have Will Smith. It would be more of a surprise if they don’t win the World Series.
At this point I think he’s a lock for cooperstown, if Mauer gets in first ballot then he and buster posey will
HoF inductees should never carry and if/then statement as compared to other HoFs as a reason for induction. That’s the laziest and most pointless reason to be inducted in the history of sports.
ROIDS!!!
That is what I though with his early success. He was way over .300. Coming down a lot right now, surprised to see him at .299 now.
Pharmaceutical speed for “sleep and attention issues” is another common cause.
Love Salvy, but I think he’s a couple good years short – at least – to being Cooperstown-bound. It will help his cause if the Royals do post-season damage as his career winds down.
I figured he was already HOF bound and was surprised to see how far off he still is by the qualitative standards shown on Baseball reference. I don’t think there’s any doubt he ultimately gets in.
Agreed. Really good player, beloved by the fanbase, one uniform, WS ring and as the WS MVP played a huge role in that title.
Those things can overcome overall statistical shortcomings sometimes. And I think they do here.
The bar feels like it has gotten lower for HOF so I feel like if salvy had a horrible accident tomorrow and never played a game again he would still get in first ballot probably
In the past I may have agreed, but Joe Mauer being 1st ballot changes the paradigm for catchers a lot. Salvy’s already played a few 100 more games at C than Mauer, just to start.
There was another guy with a giant head who had a power surge in his mid 30s…
There’s no power surge. He’s just had 2 good months making contact. By the end of the end he may be back to his career norms.
He also led the league in slugging at age 40 and tested positive.
But he had a cute nickname and the writers liked him so they let him in despite having a lower career WAR than Bobby Abreu.
All Perez needs to do is go by Big Salvy and he’s guaranteed to get in.
Salvy hit 48 homers in his prime, I would love to see him hit the roids hard and go from 255 pounds to 275 and have his head go from a loaf of bread to an Amazon package
Was it you?
Well-written article. Thank you.
It’s crazy to think that all the other stars from that WS team like Hosmer, Gordon and Moustakas are gone yet Perez is still in KC thriving for the resurgent Royals. You love to see it.
The clowns calling Salvy a roider should be ashamed of themselves. He’s a class act. Glad to see him still doing damage.
Nice to see Salvy being rewarded after all those tough seasons from the Royals
I’d be very surprised if this was anything other than a talented player having a really hot couple of months. We’ve seen it time and again.
As for the Roidtiz comps remember David was let go by the Twins after 2002. Likely because they saw the PED testing coming and knew the inevitable. He needed to stay in the league and could only do it by cheating.
Perez has already made a ton of money and won a title. He also is an MLB quality player without the help. He has zero incentive to cheat at this point and millions of reasons not to risk a positive test.
Outside shot at the HOF? If he gets to 300 HR’s and 40 WAR I’d say most likely.
I think it depends on his final years, honestly. Currently, there are….. about 20 catchers ahead of him in terms of JAWS, and although I don’t think that’s an absolute, it is a consistent measure of how catchers have been elected to the HoF. Mauer is #7 on that list out of 11 total.
Thurman Munson is next up on that list and he has not been elected to the Hall despite his extraordinary numbers and having his career cut short because he died.
But you have some very notable non-HOF names between Posey and where Perez is, like Yadier Molina, Posada, Bill Freehan, JT Realmuto, etc.
It’s certainly not the end-all be-all, but it seems he needs to finish out with really strong years to get close enough.
Clipper – Posada 18th all time in wins above replacement for catchers. I didn’t expect him to make it into the HOF off the bat but it’s dissapointing to see how little of a vote he got on his 1st year of eligibility.
Posada was able to do everything but throw for most of his career. Clutch hitter, called great games, leader on the field, and put up some good offensive numbers. He’d get my vote.
Craven, me too brother. I mean, I also figured he wasn’t first ballot, but I think he’s actually underrated in terms of HOF candidacy. He was phenomenal for the reasons Padam listed.
Given his placement among the historical list of catchers, it would be a shame if he didn’t get in.
I’ve always thought if Molina is going to the hall of fame why isn’t Posada? Too be honest I was never a big fan of either guy. But Posada was a winner. No where near the defender Molina was but Jorge definitely had the better stick. Catchers have a harder time getting in. Look at Gary Carter. It was a surprise to me at least that Mauer flew in.
Salvy has been the best catcher the past decade. That screams HOF to me.
If counting stats meant as much as they use to he might have had an outside chance because he is probably gonna finish up with 300 plus homers. But Salvy reminds me a lot of Lance Parrish. Another charter member of the hall of very good.
Good for Salvy and good for the Royals as well. For a division that looked like the worst in baseball coming into the season, the fact that Cleveland, KC and Detroit are all playing well above expectations and only the Sox being out of playoff discussions is pretty cool.
The Royals will not top 56 wins by the All-Star Break.
Salvy and BWJ carried the Royals for the first two months, but watch out for a serious slump by Perez. IMO, the Royals have peaked.
As a Jays fan I would like to see him make the HOF. His 2021 in a lot of years should’ve got him better than 7th in MVP voting. Class act with multiple gold gloves and multiple seasons of strong offensive production out of the catcher position for one franchise. Can see it as debatable but if I had any say he’s a HOF.
No doubt he’s a hall of famer
Clearly he’s not a trade candidate and is already under an extension, so why is MLBTR talking about him? Are they getting some payola from his agent?
This reads like a weak attempt to be like Fangraphs. These are just regurgitated stats the writer found there or on Statcast. Stop trying to be something you’re not, MLBTR. Report the news and when you do analysis, analyze transactions, which you’re better at than anyone. Enough with this player-friendly tripe.
Or you can just not read the articles you’re not interested in. That seems like the easiest solution to me.
Btw, these aren’t “fluff pieces.” For every article like this, there’s another one discussing how the likes of Alex Bregman and Tim Anderson are having awful seasons.
And this is, in fact, relevant from a transactional perspective: a contract that initially looked to be underwater is proving to be fruitful for the franchise. Thus, the Royals can address needs beyond catcher and will not be as inclined to dump his contract.
Finally, for those of us interested in the factors driving teams toward success, this is an interesting analysis. Tim Dierkes has discussed this before: the site isn’t strictly dedicated toward “trade rumors.” They’re allowed to write other types of articles
You must get some kind of smug satisfaction from white knighting for random people on the internet.
“The Royals can address needs beyond catcher and will not be as inclined to dump his contract.” Where exactly does the article discuss this? It doesn’t. You’re drawing a connection that isn’t there because you’re either trying to one-up me or you’re getting defensive on someone else’s behalf. Just step away from the keyboard.
This website isn’t about “factors driving team success” that aren’t transactional. This is a site that front office personnel all over the league read religiously, and posting player-friendly puff pieces is a deliberate act to persuade teams to pay more for players. That’s why agents pay MLBTR to make their guys look good.
The articles about why players aren’t playing well also don’t belong. In those cases, it’s the teams that benefit. Want your struggling young veteran to sign a cheaper extension or take a lower arb salary? Pay MLBTR to help depress his market by pointing out to other franchises that he’s bad. They won’t wanna give him money and he’ll have to take yours. Simple as that.
All of this is a lame attempt to try and draw new readership, and it doesn’t work. This site is dying. Why else would they be making readers pay and having sponsored posts? Once the aging men who read this site stop, it’s gone. No younger people read baseball blogs.
It’s foolish at best to write articles that belong on the Royals’ SBN site. Unethical at worst. They need to stop.
“Where exactly does the article discuss this?”
It doesn’t directly address it, but I independently drew that conclusion because I can interpret information for myself. I would think that, likewise, front office personnel are intelligent enough not to make key decisions based on a single internet article.
“This website isn’t about ‘factors driving team success’ that aren’t transactional.”
According to who, you? Where exactly is it written that MLBTR must strictly abide by this standard? I feel like you’re conflating the website’s title with its mission/purpose.
“…a deliberate act to persuade teams to pay more form players.”
Where is your evidence of this? Sounds like a lot of your accusations stem from speculation rather than fact
And where is their mission statement? This has been a news website for 15 years. It’s not Fangraphs. They’ve been trying to be for years and it’s silly.
Evidence? I independently drew that conclusion because I can interpret information for myself.
I never said front offices are going to make their decisions based on these articles. I said that they read them. And agents/teams giving MLBTR payola unduly influences the market.
Anecdotally, Salvy has been spitting on the low breaking balls more than I’ve ever seen him. Also, I’ve always felt that Salvys hot and cold streaks were tied to fatigue. The more he catches without a day off, the more he starts to chase junk in the dirt. I’d like to see them play him even more at first (where he’s surprisingly decent) and DH.
He needs to drop about 20 pounds.