Kansas City Royals: Is Salvador Perez Overrated?

Salvador Perez is a great catcher for the Kansas City Royals, but it’s tough to know where to begin with this subject. First off, whose rating do we go by? Most player rankings are done for fantasy purposes, or simple fan fare. Sites like Bleacher Report, Yahoo Sports, and CBS Sports put out tons of lists to give people a point of reference, so let’s start there.

In their most recent list (Sept. 21), Bleacher Report ranked Salvador Perez as the 9th best catcher of the year. Prior to the ’16 season, CBS Sports placed him at number 4. Interestingly, Yahoo Sports ranked Perez as the no. 10 catcher at the All-Star break, but projected him to be the 8th best in 2017.

Let’s take a look at who we’re really talking about here. Salvador Perez is a career .272/.302/.432 hitter with 130 doubles, 87 home runs, and 696 hits in 684 games across 6 seasons. Defensively, he’s been good for 9.8 WAR since coming into the league. Compared to his 11.6 OWAR, it’s clear that Perez is as strong defensively as offensively.

Once very good, now just good

It is important to point out that Perez has been steadily declining with the bat. From 2011-2013, Perez was a .301/.331/.451 hitter. He hit only 27 home runs in those three seasons, yet his OWAR peaked at 2.8 in ’13, when he hit only 13 home runs. Since that time, Perez has hit no higher than .260, and his average dropped down to .247 in 2016. While his offense is in decline, Perez has been able to produce 1.5 DWAR or better since 2012.

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A change in his hitting approach deserves the credit for Perez’ less than impressive bat these days. Perez has always been a free swinger, but it’s gotten worse as of late. Taking a look at the Heat Maps over at Fangraphs, we can clearly see that he’s become less selective at the plate. In ’13, he was swinging at 50% or more pitches outside of the strike zone. Fast forward to ’16, and he’s swinging at 70% of pitches above the strike zone, and 60% of pitches below, outside, and inside. His fly ball rate spiked nearly 10 points to 47.1% since ’15, and nearly 15 points higher than in ’13.

The benefit to his change in approach is an increase in home runs. In 2013 his career high was 13 homers. In the last three years, he’s averaged 20 bombs per year. Like many players do, Salvador Perez sacrificed his contact for power. He’s gone from a .290 to a .250 hitter, and he hardly gets on base. No seriously, the guy doesn’t walk. His 22 base on balls in ’16 match his career high set in ’14. So the lack on contact hurts more for him, considering he doesn’t make it up with walks.

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The Verdict

Now let’s get back to the point here: is Perez overrated? My short answer is no. Poor base running and a bad approach at the plate will hinder him from ever being the best catcher in the league, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a very good catcher. His .994 fielding % and career 35.2 caught stealing % aren’t going anywhere soon. He’s still just 26 years old, and has plenty of time to get his hitting back on track. Only Buster Posey and Jonathan Lucroy are clearly superior to Perez, though Gary Sanchez, Sandy Leon and Willson Contreras are certainly in the mix. I’d personally rank Perez somewhere between 4-6 among all catchers heading into 2017. Does that make him overrated? If anything, I’d say he’s underrated.