Did the Braves find a diamond in the rough with newly acquired catcher – Carlos Perez?
Since the Atlanta Braves catching duo of Tyler Flowers and Kurt Suzuki were both injured during the first series of the 2018 season, Alex Anthopoulos has added more depth to the catcher position in the form of Carlos Perez.
He has already been added to the Braves 40-man roster and it looks like he’s going to wear #61.
A reason this trade makes sense is, like Fred pointed out last night, Braves GM Anthopoulos helped sign Perez back on January 2, 2008 when he was still a part of the Toronto Blue Jays.
The 27-years-old was involved in a huge trade back on July 20, 2012 with the Blue Jays and the Houston Astros. This traded also involved Francisco Cordero, Joe Musgrove, and J.A. Happ.
In November of 2014, Perez was traded along with Nick Tropeano by the Astros to the Angels for Hank Conger.
Now caught up to present day, the Braves traded last night Ryan Schimpf to the Angels for Perez.
The 6’0″ 210-pound catcher has played three years in the MLB with the Los Angeles Angels, but only played in 20 games at the major league level in 2017.
Here are his offensive stats:
| Year | Team | LG | G | AB | R | H | TB | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | IBB | SO | SB | CS | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | LAA | AL | 86 | 260 | 20 | 65 | 90 | 13 | 0 | 4 | 21 | 19 | 0 | 49 | 2 | 0 | .250 | .299 | .346 | .645 | |
| 2016 | LAA | AL | 87 | 268 | 25 | 56 | 87 | 16 | 0 | 5 | 31 | 12 | 0 | 49 | 1 | 0 | .209 | .244 | .325 | .568 | |
| 2017 | LAA | AL | 11 | 20 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | .100 | .143 | .250 | .393 | |
| MLB Career | – | 184 | 548 | 46 | 123 | 182 | 29 | 0 | 10 | 55 | 32 | 0 | 104 | 3 | 0 | .224 | .267 | .332 | .599 |
Obviously, Perez hasn’t been much of a threat at the plate in his tenure in the majors, but his minor league stats are a different story. In 2017, Perez played 68 games in Triple-A with the Salt Lake Bee’s. His slash line was .352/.423/.502/.925, and he had five home runs with 40 RBI’s, 38 K’s, and 32 BB’s.
While his offensive numbers were great in AAA during 2017, behind the plate is where I believe he thrives.
Perez’s above average percentage in runners caught stealing
In 2015, Perez played 80 games as a catcher and had a 38% runners caught stealing while the league average was 32%.
In 2016, Perez played 82 games as a catcher and had a 38% runners caught stealing while the league average was 29%.
In 2017, Perez played only 10 games with a 44% runners caught stealing while the league average was 27%.
Additionally, while with the Salt Lake Bee’s in 2017, Perez has a 44% runners caught stealing over 58 games.
Lifetime, Perez has a 38% runners caught stealing which is singinficantly better than both Flowers and Suzuki. Flower’s lifetime CS% is 23%, and Suzuki’s lifetime CS% is 24%.
With the injuries to both Flowers and Suzuki, adding Perez as a backup to Chris Stewart is a smart move by the Braves front office.
Is Perez someone we’re going to rely on? No. He’s he capable of getting the job done while we’re waiting on Flowers and Suzuki to get healthy? Yes.
Next: Atlanta Braves attempting to save the bullpen; bring in Ravin
Another good note…despite the small sample size, is that Perez is fairly decent pitch framer. On the StatCorner Catcher Report, Perez ranked #19 in 2017 on the list of top pitch-framing catchers. Yes, he only play in a small percentage of games in the MLB, but still not bad.
Though, in 2015 and 2016 Stat Corner ranks him a little lower. In 2015, he was ranked 92 of 117 and in 2016 he was 88 out of 114.
Perez is a Mike Scioscia trained catcher so maybe he picked up on something.
Most likely his caught stealing percent and his (maybe he found something) framing abilities can be attributed to current Angels catcher Martin Maldonado. Hopefully Perez can soak up more knowledge since he will now be in a Braves uniform with arguably the best catching duo in the league, when healthy.