Salvador Perez is Among Baseball’s Elite

Salvador Perez came onto the scene in 2011 when he was just a 21-year-old prospect from Venezuela. Perez, now a 24-year-old budding superstar has become one of the premier defensive catchers in the MLB.

In 39 games with the Royals his rookie year, he had an impressive slash line of .331/.361/.473 with 21 RBIs.

The following year was really when he really started to come into his own as a complete player. He finished his sophomore campaign with another impressive slash line of .301/.328/.471 with 11 home runs in 79 games. During the 2012 season however, his defensive prowess was displayed much more.

During the 74 games he caught, Perez had a caught-stealing percentage of 42%, which if he was a qualified player would have been fourth in the MLB. Perez threw out 18 runners in 74 games, which if averaged out, in 162 games would have been (roughly) 39 runners. Except no modern-day catcher is going to catch all 162 games, but it just goes to show how much potential he had at just 22-years-old.

In just his first full season as the Royals’ full-time catcher, Perez was voted to the All-Star game, and took home a Golden Glove award at the end of the season. He caught 25 runners stealing, with a caught-stealing percentage of 35% which was fifth best among catchers in the MLB and the Royals had a team ERA of 3.45, which was also fifth best in the majors.

Perez was no slouch at the plate, either. He hit .292 with 13 home runs, and finished 22nd in voting for the AL MVP Award

2014 was much of the same for Perez, he took home yet another Golden Glove award, and was voted to back-to-back All-Star games – and did this all before he turned 25. That happened to be the same age  that Yadier Molina won his first Golden Glove.

For the better part of a decade, Molina has been the best catcher in baseball. Molina is a two-time World Series champion, seven-time Golden Glove Award winner, three-time Platinum Glove Award winner, and six-time All-Star.

To the casual baseball fan, looking at the accolades is enough to consider him the best in baseball, but Molina’s intangibles are up there with the all-time greats. His ability to call a game and frame pitches is unmatched, granted he’s had some Cy Young worthy pitchers, Yadi has helped them out, a lot.

Molina’s best defensive season was in 2012, where he finished fourth in MVP voting. His dWAR that year was 2.6, he threw out 35 runners with a caught-stealing percentage of 48% – he also had a slash line of .315/.373/.501.

Not that Molina is the greatest ever, but for the last seven years, he’s been a paragon of what catchers should strive to be.

Perez is in good company, so far this season he’s caught nine runners stealing, and has a caught-stealing percentage of 75%. Now, that will almost certainly go down, but he has shown flashes of greatness over the last three seasons.

Can Perez become baseball’s next elite catcher? Absolutely, and stats say that he already is.

By the time Molina had won his first Golden Glove Award, he had a career dWAR of 6.3, he was churning out great season after great season (offensively and defensively) before he started to get any recognition. Perez had just a 1.4 dWAR in not even one full season of play before going on to win his first Golden Glove in his third season. It didn’t take long to join baseball’s elite.

Offensively, Perez has a better bat than Molina. Defensively, Perez is still behind Molina. Perez, however, is learning very quickly how to be a force in this league. There is something to be said for winning two Golden Glove Awards before 25-years-old, especially at the catcher position.

That’s not to say that Molina is one some sort of downward spiral toward irrelevancy, he’s still the most feared defensive catcher in the game. Molina has cemented his place in the history books, but Perez is on the rise, and definitely going to be the one who takes over as baseball’s best catcher in a few years.

There’s no telling how high Salvador Perez’s ceiling is. He still needs discipline, but he, along with the Royals are in a very good position to be among baseball’s elite, for years to come.