February 18: The Diamondbacks have officially announced Perdomo’s extension. The shortstop will address the media today, along with general manager Mike Hazen.
February 17: The Diamondbacks have reportedly reached agreement with shortstop Geraldo Perdomo on a four-year extension that’ll cover the 2026-29 seasons. There’s also a fifth-year club option. Perdomo, a client of Republik Sports, is guaranteed $45MM. The deal buys out his final two arbitration seasons and at least two would-be free agent years, with the option covering a third free agent season.
Perdomo has a little over three years of major league service. He’d already agreed to a $2.55MM salary to cover his first season of arbitration. That is unchanged. He’ll collect a $5MM signing bonus and will earn $5MM in 2026, $8MM in ’27, $11MM in ’28, and $13MM in ’29. The option is valued at $15MM and comes with a $3MM buyout. His 2028-30 salaries could escalate if he finishes in the top 10 in MVP balloting. Perdomo had been on track to hit free agency in advance of his age-28 season. If the D-Backs exercise their option, he’d get to the market at age 31.
The switch-hitting Perdomo has established himself as Arizona’s shortstop behind a solid glove and strong plate approach. He debuted in 2021 but didn’t get a real opportunity until the following season. He provided very little offensively as a rookie, but he has been a league average hitter over the last two years.
Perdomo had an excellent first half in 2023. He earned an All-Star nod behind a .271/.378/.408 showing. The offense cratered coming out of the All-Star Break, as he managed only a .214/.322/.297 line in the second half. Nevertheless, manager Torey Lovullo declared early in last year’s Spring Training that he remained committed to Perdomo as the everyday shortstop.
Last season got off to a rough start. The middle infielder suffered a meniscus tear in his right knee within the first two weeks of the season. He underwent surgery that shelved him until early June. Perdomo played well upon returning, hitting .274/.345/.380 with 20 doubles and a pair of homers across 361 plate appearances. He carries a .258/.349/.366 slash in nearly 900 trips to the plate over the last two seasons.
Perdomo has a throwback offensive approach. He has drawn walks at a strong 11.3% clip while keeping his strikeout rate to a modest 16.3% since the start of 2023. He has 41 doubles and six triples with only nine home runs over that stretch. He ranks near the bottom of the league in hard contact rate and average exit velocity, but he rarely chases stuff off the plate or gets beat within the strike zone. Only Luis Arraez and Steven Kwan have a lower swinging strike rate among hitters with at least 500 plate appearances over the last two seasons.
The small-ball game even extends to bunting. Perdomo led the majors in sacrifices in both 2022 and ’23. He finished tied for sixth in that category last year despite the injury absence. While he doesn’t have great top-line speed, Perdomo has been an efficient basestealer and rates as a solid overall baserunner.
Public metrics have painted a varying picture of the defense. Statcast has graded him as a league average shortstop in each of his three full seasons. Reviews from Defensive Runs Saved have bounced around. DRS had Perdomo a few runs below average in both 2022 and ’23 but credited him at +10 runs last year, which tied for fifth-best at the position.
Arizona likes Perdomo’s game enough to commit to him at shortstop despite the presence of top infield prospect Jordan Lawlar. The 22-year-old ranks as Arizona’s best prospect and in the top 15 overall on Baseball America’s Top 100 list. Lawlar had a cup of coffee late in the ’23 season and would likely have gotten his first significant MLB opportunity last year had he not gotten injured. He’s likely to open this year in Triple-A but should be a factor at some point midseason. His long-term future is probably at third base with Eugenio Suárez hitting free agency next offseason. The Diamondbacks have Perdomo and Ketel Marte signed for multiple years beyond this one.
The D-Backs have pushed payroll to franchise-record heights this offseason. They’re going into the season with a player payroll north of $195MM, according to RosterResource. That’s well ahead of last year’s $163MM Opening Day mark, which was itself an organizational high. They have nearly $90MM coming off the books next winter. Suárez, Jordan Montgomery, Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly and Josh Naylor are all hitting free agency. They’ll have a lot of work to do, especially on the pitching staff, but there’s enough future flexibility to make an extended commitment to Perdomo.
Mike Rodriguez first reported that the D-Backs were signing Perdomo to an extension. ESPN’s Jeff Passan had the four-year, $45MM guarantee beginning in 2026 with the fifth-year option. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com was first to report that the option could push the contract to $57MM, while escalators could add another $15MM. Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic had the full salary breakdown, while Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported the MVP bonuses.
Image courtesy of Imagn.
hell yeah brother
Great move! Very underrated player.
Jordan Lawlar you are a Third baseman!
No Marte is probably a DH very soon. Perdomo slides to 2B where he better profiles. Lawlar’s athleticism is too great to waste at 3B
I agree that Ketel is more likely to see the majority of his PAs at DH soon, but I disagree that Lawlar’s athleticism is wasted at 3B.
The one gripe that I regularly see about his defense is that his arm accuracy diminishes when he’s making back-hand plays; covering the 3B line reduces the number of back-hand plays he would have to make.
If his bat is what everybody thinks it can be, it will still profile perfectly fine at 3B. That also brings a level of glove and speed that is uncommon to find at the 3B position (and baserunning and fielding are generally heavier focuses for the DBacks than most other clubs; at least they have been historically).
Can he be moved to SS and Perdomo to 2B? Absolutely, but the DBacks have: Carroll, Lawlar, Marte, McCarthy, Moreno, Perdomo, and Thomas under (affordable) contract for the next 4 seasons (and Smith for the next 3)
They have a few interesting MIF types (and Gino Groover) that can establish themselves within that time frame, and the only regular spots open are 1B and either 2B or 3B (depending on how Lawlar/Perdomo are utilized after Marte vacates 2B).
That’s not even factoring in Del Castillo or Jorge Barrosa to the mix, who will also be under control for the next 5 years. This is a VERY deep position player group in the near term, and most all of them still have existing upside.
Absolutely! Every at bat is a great at bat. Hes our future lead off hitter.
Important signing. These kind of guys are ‘glue guys’. Not headliners but you can’t win without them. Reminds me of Hoerner with the Cubs.
I agree with what you said, adding on this is a Lovello guy, he is a old soul ball player, Lovello has said numerous times about Perdomo’s club house presence, being Lovello’s captain of the infield, taking charge of the infield defense, best 9th place hitter for the D’Backs.. This was a overall organization signing, he is very well liked by the front office.
Vladdy extension up next please.
Vladdy isn’t foregoing a shot at free agency unless the Blue Jays offer about $450-500 million
Yeah, I’ve kinda felt all along that he will test free agency no matter what and that this “deadline” to get an extension done isn’t actually real.
$450-500 million for a DH/1B?? Crazy talk.
See Juan Soto in a couple years.
@sickiebettsox…..While those long term deals for Howard/Fielder/Pujols first basemen has helped keep teams from signing such ill-advised deals for a guy Alonso, Soto’s abilities as a hitter are elite.
If Trout could stay healthy, he’s the only current hitter that is close to Soto (.apologies to Judge)
dickie* pardon the typo
Um, pretty sure Judge is objectively better than Soto given that he outperformed him in nearly every stat. Not to say Soto is bad, he’s great, but Judge has a couple years of top 2-3 bats in the game with Ohtani.
Soto deal for the Mets will mirror the Arod deal for the Yankees I think. Arod is better but Soto plays at a time when AVG and OBP are incredibly scarce so he might turn out to be better.
Soto was grossly overpaid and I’m in the minority but it’s my belief that he benefited from Steinbrenner and Henry purposely bidding up the cost. His bat and eyes are obviously elite but the rest of his game is average or worse,
But thats kind of it. Despite never winning a GG, Trout’s defense, when healthy, was above avg. and he could steal bases. He is/(was)a true 5 tool player. Soto’s value is diminished on the field and on the base paths. But, by today’s standards, when OPS is worth more than everything, I guess that puts Soto in the elite category. I just don’t agree with anything else outside of that.
Is he actually good or just a defensive WAR merchant? Offense looks pretty weak.
Weak?? He hit .323 last year! 98R/30HR/99RBI/.396OBP. Seriously?
I think he’s referring to Perdomo as being weak at the plate.
Whose numbers are those? lol
I love Perdomo but he’s never come anywhere close to those numbers
Geraldo Perdomo is your favorite ballplayer’s favorite ballplayer.
Is he a glove only player?
Glove, team leader, great fundamentals, avg, and I think he will be one of the best in 2 years. I think he will get some pop too.
He’s a very good ball player. He’s a tough out and puts together a great at bat when you need him the most. You can bet, if he comes up in the 9th down by a run or two, he’s getting on base one way or another. And the other players love him. They call him “Sam” after Ted Lasso character. I’m happy for him. He’s fun to watch.
When he went down with a torn meniscus early in the season, the team really missed him. Then they went on a big run as soon as he came back
28-33 without him. kevin newman was a godsend
Blaze was fun while his BABIP was high, but his SS defense was a bit more brutal than anticipated.
Dbacks are a team to be recommend with. I like their 10 year outlook more then the Dodgers
Reckoned*
Than*
I heard a news reporter say that the streets were crowded so they had to take a “circus route”!
Because they overpaid a 25 year old who looks more like 35 and is a career .235 hitter?
Don’t worry everyone, Darren’s just having a tantrum cause Perdomo bagged his wife
I’m pretty it’s more then Darren’s wife he bagged. I’m pretty sure I saw him at Gold & Silver pawn with his baseball memorabilia looking for loose change
Well, we all know none of the regulars on here are happily married so the bit about a “wife” confuses me.
Nice little bit of business.
Honestly, I’ve never heard of you. Do you exist? Or r u just a troll? Bye
I muted him.
I muted him immediately after I posted my comment.
This is a really good deal for the DBacks.
Nice. I love these. Players get life changing money, teams get cost certainty, looks like a solid win-win.
In before all of the comments acting like they just gave an extension to prime Cal Ripken Jr.
Oh, Never mind…
Damn, wanted him for the Yankees. I thought maybe they could eat the Montgomery contract and ship a young shortstop the dbacks way. There are just less and less low K high OBP infielders to try and scrounge up.
Lol. The Yankees are hoping Volpe turns out to be what Perdomo is now. That’s not going to happen with his plate discipline.
Rock solid defense at SS and .350 OBP in the 9-hole? Yes, please!!!
I think this is a sign we’re packaging Lawler with Monty so we get out of that deal and get something in return
Provided he can stay healthy, I’m guessing Lawler is the Dbacks 3B as early as the trade deadline or ’26. For now, he needs to accumulate as many AAA ABs as possible.
Rugger
No need to package anyone with Montgomery. He is currently the best starting pitcher available in MLB. He lost a lot of weight during this offseason and worked hard to get in better shape so he can bounce back from a fluke bad season. Unless there is an injury that makes a team desperate for a quality starter, look for the Dbacks to keep him until at least the trade deadline. But the Dbacks will get full value when/if they do trade him and the team getting him will pay his entire remaining contract.
0 chance he still is we have way too many starters and everyone knows zac hates more then 5 days rest
YeahNO
Good extension, fun player to watch. Always nice to see an old school guy who puts the ball in play and fields his position really well.
Arizona is pretty well run these days and seems to be ahead of the curve with most things. It’s really tough for them being with the Dodgers, but now that the Pads have imploded with all the legal stuff, these guys should be pencilling themselves down for 88+ wins.
casual
Dbacks won 89 games last year and this year’s club is 5-10 wins better. So, I’d revise your number to 96 wins.
Didn’t they lose 2 of their top 4 home run hitters?
@Darren
Correct, but Christian Walker (24.1 K%) and Joc Pederson (23.4 K%) also had 2 of the 3 highest K% of any of AZ’s regulars; swapping for Josh Naylor (16.6 K%) and Pavin Smith (19.6 K%) means that there should more balls in play.
Their offense isn’t built around the longball; it’s built around putting as many baserunners on as possible, and running until the fielding team forces them to stop.
That’s why not many teams were close to the DBacks by UBR or XBR (and their overall baserunning was close to top of MLB, in spite of middle of the pack SB/CS numbers).
We’re not too worried about missing HRs, because they were gravy to begin with lol.
Copium?
Are you saying “copium” about the 88+ wins comment, or about the 96 wins comment? 96 wins is definitely near (or above) the upper bar for their performance, but they did just win 89 games with one of the worst performing pitching staffs in MLB.
I guess we’ll see who’s copium at the end of the season!
I can’t knock you for having high hopes; after all, if you can’t dream big before the season starts, you can’t dream big at all.
That being said, “once bitten, twice shy”. This ol’ dog has been kicked a few too many times lol.
Slightly better year than last year, imho. Naylor + more Smith ABs + more consistency from Carrol about equals the loss of Walker + Pederson.
Burnes + a healthy Kelly, plus positive reversion from either ERod or Monty should be a big improvement in the rotation.
The DBacks are definitely a good team but I think you’ll be disappointed expecting 96 wins. PECOTA and Fangraphs have them projected for 88-89 wins and last season there was only one team in MLB with more than 95 wins—The Dodgers with 98.
Last year the Dbacks won 89 games, with one of the worst pitching staff analytics in MLB. The underlying analytics indicated the starters were not as bad as the results. This year, theDbacks added a #1 starter in Corbin Burnes to lead the returning staff.. Theyalso added a back end of the bullpen arm in Graveman. With those additions and regression back up to norms for the returning staff, even if overall the pitching only gets back to middle of the pack, it’s reasonable to expect the Dbacks to improve on last year’s win total of 89 wins. That means a number of wins in the 90’s. If they simply live up to those modest expectations, I won’t be disappointed.
Sure, but it would be folly to expect only positive linear regression to career norms though.
They also lost their 5th and 6th most valuable hitters and have several negative regression candidates: Grichuck, Suarez, McCarthy.
They’re good no doubt and should make the postseason; but most sources agree they are closer to the OP’s original prediction of 89 than they are to 96.
At the outset of spring training every player and every team has nothing but good things in store.
Optimism reigns and it should.
toptim
Sure. You put your faith in analytics, in this case I don’t.
In 2023, this specific team blew the projections away. In 2024, this young team increased their win total by 5 runs and once again blew the analytics projections away. This team is on an upward projectory as a team, despite what analytics projections predict. No one is saying this team is weaker this year than it was last year. The consensus is that they are better, as a team. It’s realistic therefore to expect more wins from this specific team than they had last year. Team growth isn’t measured by analytics concepts like regression back to the norm. If it is an improving team, what individuals do as far as regression, etc. are irrelevant. A good, young team is getting better. This isn’t a team of long in the tooth veterans who have established a level of performance we can expect only a standard deviation from year to year now. So, I think it is totally reasonable to expect this team to get better over last year’s 89 win season. They improved by 5 wins from ‘23 to ‘24. What then would a 5-7 win improvement be considered an outlandish or copium expectation? Yes, 96 wins is a max probable improvement, but again, I’m expecting some win total in the 90’s this year.
I must have misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that analytics indicated that the pitching staff underperformed and will be better this year, but I now realize you don’t have faith in the analytics. My mistake.
fwiw, ZiPS at Fangraphs projected the D-Backs to win 82 games in 2023. They won 84, so ZiPS was pretty close.
toptim
Sorry I wasn’t clear.
The underlying numbers seem to indicate that there was some “bad luck” involved, and the Dbacks should have actually performed better than the final stats revealed. In other words, the pitchers weren’t as bad as their final results seemed to indicate.
But doesn’t that mean you are putting faith in analytics?
toptim
I have lots of faith in analytics…up to a point. I also have faith in what my eyes see. I also have faith in my own judgement. Ever notice that PECOTA projections are roughly accurate, but each year several teams exceed expectations? My point is that this year, the Dbacks will be one of those teams. I appreciate your respect for PECOTA and other systems. Just don’t take them as gospel, because they are just predictors, not actual results.
BTW. Were the PECOTA projections released before or after the Dbacks signed Burnes and Graveman?
You have to remember that projections aren’t hard and fast numbers; if you see an 88 win projection, it’s actually a range of results of which 88 wins is the average.
For more advanced systems, seasons are simulated tens of thousands of times and the overall results essentially come out to a Bell Curve; the projected number of wins is generally the peak of that curve (although, some factors can shift results one way or another).
Projections are generally the best estimated guesses that we have; that doesn’t change the fact that they will still always be estimated guesses.
Yes, the projections as of 02/19/25 have them at 87.3 wins.
baseballprospectus.com/standings/
I certainly don’t take this as gospel, but in my opinion they are much closer to this than being a 96 win team. That’s why they play the games though. We’ll only know in October for sure.
toptim
You might be right, but as you say we’ll know in October.
Last year I thought the Dbacks were a lock for the post-season and would win 90 or more games. So I had to do a mea culpa at the end of the season. Nevertheless, I think the Dbacks will get to about 95 wins and into the playoffs this season.
This article says that theDbacks are losing Montgomery, Gallen, and Kelly to FA next year, so they have a lot of work to do to replace those starters. Not true. If they simply re-sign Merrill Kelly, which I think they will do, then they’ll have a starting staff on Burnes, Kelly, Rodriquez, Pfaadt and Nelson. With some good young pitchers coming up behind them, including Drey Jameson, Lin, etc.
@scottaz, I agree with you on them simply re-signing Merrill Kelly. We would still have a strong 2026 starting rotation, and we still have Jameson, Lin, Mena, and Walston.
His numbers don’t tell the whole picture. The guy is the happiest guy on the field while also caring intensely.. He’s a joy to watch with an infectious love of the game. I don’t have the data querying skills to show the exact numbers, but when he’s not playing, they’re a below .500 team. When he is, well above .500. Je ne sais quoi…
No matter which combination of 5 of 7 the Dbacks start, they will basically have a starting 5 of all at least #2 starters this year.
When your manager has your back, names you the captain of the infield. Notice he usually is the last one to leave the mound. Perdomo is a team leader, Lovello believes in Perdomo, he will not hit you 25 HR drive in 100 runs, he will be a hard out though at bat. I could see Perdomo moving over to 2nd base in a couple of seasons though. Lawler needs to get settled into a player at the MLB level, prove himself on the field that he is a player Lovello can depend on. Right now he will spend time at 3B, SS maybe 2nd base. In 2027 Lawler will be the everyday shortstop, unless he proves he cannot handle MLB pitching.
That sounds like a you problem. They were in the World Series 16 months ago and only missed the playoffs last year due to a tiebreaker. If you weren’t paying attention, that’s on you.
A good move.