MLB trends: How Royals catcher Salvador Perez leveled up into the best season of his impressive career so far

Entering play on Tuesday, the Kansas City Royals owned a 21-15 record, their best record in 36 games since the 2015 World Series team started 23-13. The Royals won 21 of their first 36 games. Last season, they got their 21st win in game 75.

“We’ve seen it over and over again. They just don’t give up,” manager Matt Quatraro said after Monday’s win over the Milwaukee Brewers (via MLB.com). “I wish I could point to that and say, ‘Let’s do this first,’ but for some reason, the game gets later and they pass.”

Bobby Witt Jr. is a bona fide superstar and the rotation, led by Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans (and Brady Singer), is among the best in the game. The same happened with the bullpen. The heart of the Royals is still captain Salvador Perez. Perez is the only remaining member of the 2015 team and is still an impact player.

“When he goes, we go” second baseman Michael Massey told the Kansas City Star recently.

Perez turns 34 this Friday and hit a strong .328/.391/.560 batting line in Tuesday’s game. He also hit eight home runs and drove in 30 runs, leading the AL. You can attribute that gaudy RBI total to Perez’s .452/.564/.839 line with runners in scoring position. This is a great production period. For a catcher, it’s MVP stuff.

As good as Perez has been throughout his career – expect him to receive plenty of Hall of Fame support when the time comes – it could be argued that what we’re seeing this year is the best version of a player who made eight All-Games. -Star. See how Perez and the Royals took their game to another level.

1. It reduced the smell

For most of his career, Perez had league average strikeout rates, with high swing and error rates. It’s a tough needle to thread, but Perez did it because he’s so happy that his at-bats rarely reached the two-strike (and/or three-ball) count. He swung and missed a lot, but also put the ball in play early in the at-bat.

That’s still true this season. Perez has struck out in 14.5% of his at-base appearances, below the league average of 22.5% and below his 24.1% strikeout rate in 2021-23. He reduced his strikeout rate (i.e., strikes per pitch seen) from 17.5% from 2021-23 to 11.8% in 2024. The MLB average is 10.9%. Perez’s success rate hasn’t been this low since 2017, his age-27 season.

Set the minimum for 400 plate appearances in 2023 and 100 plate appearances in 2024, and no player has reduced his strikeout rate as much as Perez.

At one point recently, Perez made 40 plate appearances between strikeouts, and had a stretch where he struck out just four times in 86 plate appearances, or 4.7%. In this era of great speed and breaking balls that are literally designed in the laboratory, it is remarkable to hit this infrequently in any period of time.

Perez is putting more balls in play, and given the fact that he is consistently among the league leaders in exit velocity, that has led to more production overall. He is in the top 10% of the league in hard hit rate (i.e. balls hit at over 95 mph) and also in sweetspot rate, which consists of balls hit in the 8 to 32 degree launch angle range. This is the ideal range.

Simply put, Perez is among the best in the game at hitting the ball hard at the line. It was his entire career. Now he has significantly reduced his strikeouts and strikes, so more balls are being put into play. More balls in play and premium quality of contact equals one of the best hitters in the game as Perez is six weeks into 2024.

2. He has greatly improved his framing

Perez has always struck me as someone who would benefit from a “works with pitchers” metric. Over the years, Royals pitchers have praised his work behind the plate, while various metrics have ranked him as one of the worst defensive catchers in the game, especially in the frame. The statistics are universally accepted: Perez was one of the worst shooters in the game.

That changed this year. The same metrics that previously ranked Perez as a poor framer now rank him as average. The average is not necessarily good, but it is a huge improvement over recent years. Here are the numbers in Perez’s framework:

Anything less than 10 runs makes you an unequivocally bad framer. Drop down about minus 20 runs and we’re talking about a player who has no business being a regular catcher. The guy who misframes this regularly turns borderline pitches (and even some pitches that aren’t borderline) into balls and hurts his pitchers. That was Perez for a long time.

Defensive statistics in small samples can be unreliable, although in this case Perez’s framing improvement matches the eye test as well as the work. Perez was fully aware of his poor situation and sought to improve it. At the request of instructor Paul Hoover, Perez moved closer to the base so he could get a better shot. From the Kansas City Star last month:

Because he was so far behind the batter, Perez was hitting low pitches further away from the plate. That meant that on some pitches — like the one in 2018, which crossed at the same height as Friday’s strike against the Tigers — Perez was catching borderline pitches with his glove touching the dirt.

Making a change required trust. Perez had to trust Hoover that getting closer to the hitters wouldn’t result in his glove being hit by additional hits. Hoover also communicated that moving up meant errant tips would hit Perez’s glove more frequently, meaning he would be hit less by fouls behind the plate.

“He was really away from the plate two years ago — probably one of the worst,” Hoover said. “And now he’s up there with the best guys.”

Catcher interference — the bat hitting the catcher’s glove during a swing — has been on the rise throughout the league in recent seasons for exactly this reason: Catchers have moved closer to the base so they can better frame borderline pitches. For lack of a better term, Perez was still an old-school catcher who caught well behind the batter. He stood up and his framing improved.

Perez has been a strong shooter throughout his career and a league average blocker. His framing made him a liability behind the plate, at least according to defensive statistics, and that is no longer the case. Perez has turned into an average pitcher and that is much, much better than where he was last year. This level of improvement is truly remarkable.

3. The Royals have reduced their catching workload

Perez turns 34 later this week and the guy has been a workhorse for most of his career. From 2013 to 17, he averaged – average — 129.4 starts behind the plate. Only one catcher, JT Realmuto, has played 120 games at catcher in either of the last two seasons (Realmuto did it both years). Perez averaged about 130 games per year over a five-year period.

It’s no surprise, then, that since his first full big league season in 2013, Perez leads all active catchers in innings caught. Also not close:

1. Salvador Pérez: 9,904 1/3
2. JT Realmuto: 9,197
3. Martin Maldonado: 8,825 2/3
4. Yasmani Grandal: 8,422 2/3
5. Yan Gomes: 8,378 2/3

These are regular season entries only. Perez caught another 283 postseason innings during Kansas City’s runs in 2014 and 2015. He caught every inning of every game of those two playoff runs in addition to his massive regular season workload. It’s incredible.

Catcher is the most brutal position in the game (think of all the squats, all the foul tips, etc.) and burnout is inevitable. I assume every catcher Perez’s age has hamburgers for hands. This makes his attack and improved framing even more impressive. The Royals, in an effort to make Perez’s life easier (and less painful), are giving him more time at first base and DH.

Here are Perez’s workloads over the past few years (he missed 33 games with a thumb injury in 2021):

Perez is at about the same pace behind the plate, although he expects the number of catchers to start decreasing as the season progresses. All of the scheduled off days in April allowed Kansas City to play Perez at catcher often. He started eight of the team’s first 12 games at catcher, and just 13 of the last 24, as off days became less frequent. Backup Freddy Fermin runs regularly.

The issue is that the Royals no longer treat Perez like a 120-game-a-year catcher. He’s now in his mid-90s while seeing more time at first base (nine games this year) and DH (four). Fewer innings behind the plate equals less wear and tear and, in theory, leads to a fresher, healthier and more productive Perez. At the very least, he takes less beating back there.

The Royals have improved a lot – they lost a franchise-record 106 games last season, so it would be hard to be worse – and Perez is a big reason for their improved play. He’s not the only reason, as Ragans, Witt and others deserve a lot of credit, but Perez is off to his best start in years and has shown legitimate improvement in his game. That’s as good as he ever was.

“Who knows where we would be without him?” Quatraro said earlier this month (via MLB.com). “In the clubhouse, behind the plate, at the plate. It’s the best I’ve seen him all year, other than being here. Leading the league in hits at his age (as of May 1), big clutch RBIs, it’s impressive.” ”