How All-Star Kansas City Royals catcher Sal Perez subtly refined his free-swinging ways
Sure, Kansas City Royals star Salvador Perez has been one of the best two-way catchers in the majors for nearly 10 years. He’s got plenty of accolades — Gold Glove Awards, Silver Sluggers and All-Star selections — to back that up.
But it just seems preposterous to think that a 31-year-old large-framed individual like the 6-foot-3, 255-pound Perez hasn’t seen his offensive abilities erode while playing the game’s most physically demanding and grueling position.
Well, he heads into his seventh MLB All-Star Game Tuesday night at Coors Field in Denver, Colorado, in the thick of what might end up the best offensive season in the career of the three-time Silver Slugger.
Perez went into the break with a slash line of .275/.300/.501 with 21 home runs and 53 RBIs in 89 games.
“It comes from hard work,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “That’s kind of the easy answer, but it’s harder work. You ask any player that sticks around this game very long, you’ve got to work harder the longer you go, especially at that position.
“There’s extreme discipline that goes into him being able to be out there every day, which creates opportunity for the numbers. Then you’ve got to keep adapting and improving. That’s what I’ve seen Salvy do as an offensive player just in this last year. He has really taken his game to another level.”
It’s not a coincidence that nearly every time Matheny sees Perez off the field, he’s doing something related to rest or recuperation to take care of his body.
That’s what the “special” ones do, Matheny noted.
Perez’s 21 homers were tied for eighth in the AL entering Sunday as well as tied for the fourth most by a Royal prior at the break behind former teammate Mike Moustakas (25) in 2017, current teammate Jorge Soler (23) in 2019 and Jermaine Dye (22) in 2000.
Even in a first-round loss in Monday night’s MLB Home Run Derby, Perez put on a show and set an event record for most homers by a catcher. He tied the previous first-round record, but that got overshadowed because his head-to-head competition was with the eventual champion.
Oh yeah, and all of this comes 10 years into Perez’s major-league career.
“He gets better and better,” Royals veteran relief pitcher Greg Holland, a longtime teammate of Perez, said earlier this season. “He has always been a great defender and has had power. Putting together the quality at-bats consistently with power is pretty remarkable.
“And how he’s able to play everyday, he loves the game. I think most people don’t understand that when you’re playing as much as him behind the plate, he pretty much stays nicked up or dinged up constantly and he plays through it because he wants to be out there for his teammates.”
Perez already sits within shouting distance of his previous career high for homer runs in a season. He hit 27 in 2017 and again in 2018. His single-season high in RBIs is 80 (also done in 2017 and 2018).
When asked about his increased production recently, the almost perpetually jovial Perez mimicked a bench-press motion in the air as he replied, “I think it was in the weight room, getting more strong.”
Adapting and improving
Perez has a well-earned reputation as a free-swinging hitter who draws walks about once in a blue moon. He has a career walk rate of 3.3 percent.
Since 2015 when MLB Statcast data became available, Perez has had an overall swing rate of 54 percent or more each season.
However, Perez has increased the quality of the contact he makes when he does connect this season.
At the break, he ranked second in the MLB with 143 hard-hit balls (95 mph or higher exit velocity) behind the St. Louis Cardinals’ Paul Goldschmidt. Perez’s hard-hit percentage of 56.7 also ranked fourth-best in the majors.
So far this season, his hard-hit percentage and barrel percentage (a measure combining optimal exit velocity and launch angle) have both been higher than any point since 2015.
A five-time Gold Glove Award winner, Perez devotes the bulk of his time to scouting reports, game plans and his pitchers.
With the help of Royals hitting coach Terry Bradshaw, who first worked with Perez when they were both at Double-A Northwest Arkansas in 2011, Perez has also become more of a student of opposing pitchers.
“The longer you play in this game you’re always trying to find edges, little nuggets we call them,” Bradshaw said. “The more you can go in there and study what a guy is going to try to do to you, the better it is for anybody.
“He has taken pride in sitting down, taking five minutes a day on that starter to find little nuggets, whatever they may be — ways they may try to get him out, their tendencies, what they’re trying to do.”
There’s such a wealth of data available that condensing it into bite-size pieces becomes a crucial part of the process.
Sometimes that means knowing to look on a certain side of the plate for a pitch. Other times, it’s having an idea what the pitcher likes to go to ahead in the count versus behind in the count. It might be a particular tendency with two strikes.
“I think when you put all that together, it’s going to help,” Perez said.
While they want to head into each game with a plan against that night’s starter, the last thought they end on is always that they’ll adjust the plan if needed.
Calculated gambles
Perez isn’t all of a sudden going to work a 3-2 count every other time at the plate, and that’s not what Bradshaw has asked him to do.
“He’s like, ‘Be patient. You only need one pitch to hit. If you’re looking for a fastball away and they throw you a slider, you don’t have to swing if it’s a strike. No matter what, you’ve still got two more shots,’” Perez said.
Having a clearer idea of what he’s looking for at the plate combined with more than 4,000 at-bats having served as examples of what he can do as a hitter, might actually now fuel Perez’s aggressiveness at times.
Last week, Perez delivered his third walk-off hit of the season in a 7-6 win over the Cincinnati Reds. Before his ninth-inning at-bat, Perez and Bradshaw discussed the likelihood he’d get a healthy dose of sliders.
Perez looked for that pitch, went down below the strike zone to get it on a 1-1 count and smoked it over the left fielder’s head to the wall.
Perhaps the most striking example this season of Perez going out of the zone to do damage on a particular pitch came in the third inning of a May 15 game in Chicago.
White Sox All-Star left-hander Carlos Rodon threw a 96 mph fastball above the zone and off the outside corner of the plate with a 1-2 count. Perez, hunting the fastball, reached out and swatted that pitch to the opposite field with an 102 mph exit velocity for a three-run home run.
“When you’re facing a guy like him, a lot of it is you know he likes to live up in the zone,” Bradshaw said. “I think, to Salvy’s credit, he is that gifted enough that even if he is looking for something in the top of the zone he may be able to expand a ball or two more than maybe somebody else may.”
That’s where Perez’s understanding of his own strengths proves as important as his knowledge of the opposing pitcher. The cat-and-mouse game is also part of what Bradshaw tries to help Perez navigate daily.
Along with having a plan and remaining selective, Bradshaw has also stressed the importance of being ready to capitalize when a pitcher throws a ball in those areas where Perez consistently does damage.
Bradshaw described it as “a pleasure” to see Perez’s success after having watched him in the minors, putting in the hours both offensively and defensively, approaching things with enthusiasm as well as a serious sense of purpose and a desire to help win a game any way possible.
“For me, he’s a professional,” Bradshaw said. “I’ve had a lot of experience with Salvy as far as his will, the way he goes about it. He takes a lot of pride in going up there and competing.”
This story was originally published July 13, 2021 at 9:41 AM with the headline "How All-Star Kansas City Royals catcher Sal Perez subtly refined his free-swinging ways."
