Simply assume how incorrect it might’ve felt. Two years from now, watching Salvador Perez, who signed with the Royals as a 16-year-old in 2006, squatting behind the plate in Miami blue. Salvador Perez, who put the “on a regular basis” in “Kansas Metropolis Royals on a regular basis catcher” beginning in 2012, launching dingers by the skinny mountain air in Rockies purple. It’s sufficient to make you cry, however fortunately, this dystopian future has been prevented. In accordance with Anne Rogers of MLB.com, the 35-year-old backstop has signed an two-year extension that may hold in him in Royals Blue by the 2027 season. It’s higher this fashion. The deal is for $25 million, with some deferrals and a $7 million signing bonus.
To be clear, Perez wasn’t vulnerable to leaving anytime quickly. His earlier four-year, $82 million deal that began in 2022 had a $13.5 million choice for 2026, and common supervisor J.J. Picollo instructed reporters in September that the catcher can be returning a method or one other. Anthony Franco of MLB Commerce Rumors defined the explanations for the deal: “Whereas the particular wage construction and deferrals have but to be reported, it stands to motive [the Royals will] negotiate a decrease ’26 wage than the choice worth whereas giving Perez the safety of the second assured 12 months.” So it’s the traditional extension trade-off. The Royals get a reduction and Perez will get an additional 12 months of job safety. It additionally permits him to keep away from free company amid no matter shenanigans happen when the collective bargaining settlement expires after the 2026 season.
That additional 12 months is an enormous one by way of growing the chance that Perez retires as a lifelong Royal. At some point within the not-too-distant future, we’ll endure a knock-down-drag-out battle about Perez’s worthiness for enshrinement within the Corridor of Fame, and we’ll be fortunate to stay by it. Within the meantime, he’s improved his shot at wading into the fray wielding single-team bona fides. As for why the Royals would really feel the necessity to get out in entrance of issues and lock down the age-37 season of a catcher who has exceeded 0.8 WAR simply as soon as previously 4 years, nicely, it makes extra sense than you assume.
Let’s begin with the explanations to be skeptical after which we’ll finish with the explanations the transfer is sensible. When it comes to pure energy, Perez is without doubt one of the biggest catchers of all time. His 303 profession dwelling runs rank eighth on the all-time catchers checklist proper now, and he seems more likely to vault into fifth place in 2026. He wants simply 22 homers to take action, and the final time he didn’t hit not less than 20 dwelling runs in a season was 2014 (other than 2020, when his 11 translated to 26 over a full season). He launched 30 in 2025, his highest whole since 2021, when he set the now-broken single-season catcher report with 48. Might he blast one other 30 dwelling runs? After all he may. He hits the ball as onerous as ever. Actually, he simply hit the toughest ball of his complete profession this Might and ran his highest Ninetieth-percentile exit velocity since 2021. However his general offensive profile is a distinct story.
Due to one of many highest chase charges the sport has ever seen, Perez has offset almost all of that energy with disastrously low stroll charges and on-base percentages. Among the many 717 gamers in our database with not less than 6,000 profession PAs, his 3.9% stroll price ranks 711th and his on-base share ranks 694th. Consequently, he owns a profession 103 wRC+. The 2025 season supplied an important instance of his mixture of strengths and weaknesses. He put up the bottom BABIP of his profession and his third-highest xwOBA since Statcast began measuring the stat in 2015, which balanced out to a 95 wRC+. Perez has run a DRC+ of not less than 100 in each season however one stretching again to 2017, however as one of many slowest and least affected person gamers within the sport, he’s at all times going to be vulnerable to the BABIP bug. Steamer sees him posting a 100 wRC+ subsequent 12 months, which presumably means it sees him a bit under that the next 12 months. He may simply put up something from the 87 wRC+ he ran in 2023 to the 117 he had in 2024. Then once more, if the getting older curve drops his contact price even additional, be careful. Issues may get actually ugly actually quick.
Perez led baseball in video games caught thrice and exceeded 100 video games in six completely different seasons, however that was a distinct time. He has caught simply over 90 video games in every of the previous three seasons, splitting the remainder of his time between first base and designated hitter. His protection has graded out poorly at catcher and common at first. It goes with out saying that any aggressive group ought to need greater than a league-average bat from each first base and DH, particularly when a lot of that worth is frittered away due to a few of the worst baserunning worth within the sport. In order that’s all of the dangerous stuff.
Now we finish on the excessive word. Why ought to the Royals need Perez round for the 2027 season? There’s all the legacy-burnishing stuff that we talked about earlier. There’s the truth that whatever the defensive woes, it’s onerous to show up your nostril at a man who’s received probability at blasting 30 homers out of Kauffman Stadium, particularly while you’ve received an iffy DH scenario. Lastly, we’ve received the truth that Perez is a frontrunner, a fan favourite, and a Robert Clemente Award winner, possessing the form of intangibles which have brought on the Royals to miss mediocre WAR totals for years now. All these expertise are related as a result of it’s beginning to appear to be Perez might be the bridge to the following period of Kansas Metropolis catching.
The Royals traded backup catcher Freddy Fermin to San Diego on the deadline, and so they did so not less than partly as a result of Carter Jensen began to make him look superfluous. Jensen was the group’s third-round decide in 2021, a neighborhood child out of Park Hill Senior Excessive College in Kansas Metropolis. He ran a 130 wRC+ between Excessive-A and Double-A in 2024, then adopted it up with a 136 between Double-A and Triple-A in 2025. The Royals referred to as him up in September, and over 18 video games, he had a 159 wRC+ due to monster exit velocity numbers that didn’t look all that completely different from those he posted in a bigger pattern at Triple-A.
It appears secure to imagine that Jensen isn’t going to maintain placing up Cal Raleigh numbers subsequent 12 months. Steamer initiatives him for a 104 wRC+. Furthermore, when Eric Longenhagen ranked Jensen second within the group behind Jac Caglianone again in Might, he wrote that the 22-year-old nonetheless had rather a lot to determine, each on the plate and behind it: “The bodily instruments are the rationale to remain on Jensen at the same time as he trudges the lengthy growth path of a highschool catcher.” However given his early success and the Fermin commerce, it definitely seems just like the Royals are able to push Jensen alongside the trail at a sooner tempo. It’s onerous to think about a greater information over the following two years than Perez. He’s Kansas Metropolis’s final hyperlink to the 2015 championship group and one of the vital honored veterans within the sport. His spot in franchise historical past is already safe, and there’s no approach of understanding how lengthy he plans on catching, however serving to to groom the following franchise catcher might be a cherry on high of an already outstanding profession.