April 29, 2024

By Mark Whicker

Canadian Baseball Network

It all started on August 10, 2011. Kansas City was arranging the first Legos of its dream house.

One of them was 21-year-old Salvador Perez, a catcher from Venezuela with a sturdy trunk and a warm smile. The Royals were going to bring him up in September, even though he had only played 12 triple-A games. Nothing to lose at that point, when you’re bearing down on 91 losses. Instead, catcher Brayan Pena left the club to be there when his wife Lina delivered their first son, Brayan Jr. So Perez met the big club in Tampa Bay. It wasn’t the most peaceful debut.

Oh, Perez did fine, with a sacrifice fly and a single off Wade Davis, and he picked off two runners and caught five popups. But the Rays scored five runs in the ninth to win 8-7. And the Royals learned that starting pitcher Kyle Davies had been arrested for drunk driving. Manager Ned Yost said days like that couldn’t be short-cut, that the young Royals had to suffer now to prosper later. That can sound hollow, late in an empty summer, but at least Perez had given them something to talk about.

Yost, a former catcher, had heard Perez had a “pop time” of 1.85 seconds, in throwing down to second base. He refused to believe it. Then he timed it. He concluded something was wrong with his watch. Then he realized everyone else had the same time. When Perez kept showing that arm, and when he hit .331 for the rest of the season, the Royals knew one wing of their house was complete. Perez would be their catcher for, what, 10 years? That seemed reasonable to ask.

And, for once, it all worked. Kansas City won the American League pennant in 2014 and the World Series in 2015. The Royals tore down the house and began a new one, using the old small-market excuses, but Perez remained, still hitting and throwing and seemingly enjoying every minute.

Now it’s 2024 and the Royals are mixing the cement once more. They are 17-13 after Monday night's loss to the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre and looking for their first winning season since that championship. Perez is still there. He has played 29 of those 30 games and he leads the American League with 26 RBIs, and he is hitting .346 with a 1.000 OPS. At 35, he has a great chance to make it wire-to-wire with the team that signed him in Venezuela. Getting to two World Series, in two different decades, would work, too.

Perez is the only 2015 Royal still playing in the big leagues. Danny Duffy and Johnny Cueto are in the minors with Texas. Chris Young pitched to Perez that year. He now runs the Texas Rangers. Pena is the manager of Detroit’s low Class A team. Davis came over to the Royals and was the bullpen hammer against the Mets in 2015. Perez caught the final pitch of that Series, a called strike three from Davis to Wilmer Flores.

He has caught 18 of the Royals’ 30 games, after the off-season rumors that had Kansas City dealing him to Miami or the White Sox. Throwing out base stealers was hard for everyone last year, and Perez slumped to 14 percent, after twice leading the American League with 48 and 44%. This year he is back up to 25%. At 6-foot-3 and 255 pounds he is difficult to hurt, although he did miss the 2019 season with elbow surgery. In 2022 and 2023, he made four errors, total. He has not made one yet in 2024.

They ain’t making catchers like Johnny Bench anymore, to paraphrase Kinky Friedman. It has become a partnership position, sort of like doubles tennis. Durability doesn’t mean squat. In 2022, Sean Murphy of the A’s was the only AL catcher to log more than 1,000 innings. Last year, three catchers did. Perez has done it five times.

In 2014, he caught 1,248 innings. He won’t do that again, but by the time Joe Mauer was 34 he wasn’t catching at all. Pudge Rodriguez broke 1,000 when he was 35 and 36, but he was the all-time leader in games caught. Bench was out of the catching business at 32. Carlton Fisk, the career outlier, caught 1,068 innings at age 37 and then 970 more when he was 42. For this generation, especially in Kansas City, Perez wears the tools of endurance.

Perez thought he was an infielder until he attended a tryout at a military base near Valencia, Venezuela. He was 15, and scout Juan Indriago noticed his arm, and had him catch and throw from a crouch. It didn’t take long for Indriago to tell Perez to catch for a year, and then the scouts would re-evaluate. He did and they did, and Perez signed for $65,000, which was Elon Musk money to his family.

Wil Myers was the catcher of the future in Kansas City until Perez showed up. Myers was traded to Tampa Bay, a deal that brought Davis to Kansas City. The Royals nurtured Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar and added Kendrys Morales and Ben Zobrist, and Yost put together a lineup that aggressively sought contact, played Ziploc defence and leaned hard on its bullpen. It had the tying run on third base in Game 7 against San Francisco in 2014, but Perez popped up to end it.

It took no such chances in 2015, beating the Mets in five games, and Perez hit .364 and won Series MVP.

The elbow surgery in 2019 could have sent Perez into the DH pool. But Covid, in 2020, gave him more time to rehab. He played in the short season, then, in 2011, hit 48 home runs, a single-season record for catchers, and also drove in 121. He hit grand slams in back-to-back games. That earned him a four-year, $82 million deal that will keep Perez in KC at least through 2025 because, as a 5-and-10 man, he can refuse any trade.

Whether he would have refused the trades that were rumored last winter isn’t clear, but he did remind management he wanted to see the new project through. Much to his delight, the Royals signed pitchers Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo as free agents and presented shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. with the largest contract ever given to a two-year player, when annual average value is calculated. His salary will grow to $35 million in 2029 and 2030, then give him four consecutive years of options at the same price. After that, the Royals get three years of club options through 2035. At that point Witt will only be 35.

The AL Central is actually relevant this season. Cleveland has jumped to a 19-9 start even with Shane Bieber hurt, and Detroit is right there, with Cy Young candidate Tarek Skubal. The Royals have a promising rotation with Wacha, Lugo, Brady Singer and Cole Ragans, whom they got from Texas last year in exchange for Aroldis Chapman. Alec Marsh was 3-0 until he visited the injured list, but the Royals have another prospect in Jonathan Bowlan. Seven pitchers from their 2018 draft class have made at least one start in the big leagues.

What does this mean for Perez’s journey, from popular rookie to revered statesman?

Well, the scouts at that first Venezuelan tryout said Perez’s 60-yard time was aided, and motivated, by a pursuing dog. Perez hasn’t won many races since. He just hopes he can make it to the next housewarming.