Everything about Atlanta Braves starter Martin Perez's profile and peripherals screams "mediocre" or worse. Perez's fastball velocity is at the bottom of the scale; he doesn't get much extension, his whiff rate and chase rate are below average, and most of his other metrics don't jump off the page. If you just looked at what he actually does on average in terms of peripherals, no one would think that he is the proud owner of a 2.85 ERA through 41 innings this season.
Coming off a surprising 10-strikeout performance against the Marlins, some Braves fans out there are getting a bit excessive with expectations of Perez, calling him a "true pitcher" (whatever that means) and thinking he is going to be this guy all season long. That was, and remains, deeply silly.
However, for what the Braves actually need from Perez, he is more than acceptable, and if he wants to keep defying the odds, that is both great and kind of a callback to another Braves pitcher from years past.
Like Julio Teheran, what Martin Perez is doing with the Braves doesn't make sense, and that is part of the fun
We aren't saying anything groundbreaking in stating that Perez probably isn't going to carry a sub-3 ERA for the rest of the season. His FIP this season is 3.94, and his career FIP is 4.43. At some point, the regression monster is going to come for him, and at his age, it could come with a vengeance.
However, that doesn't mean he is doomed for failure. Julio Teheran famously outperformed his FIP in the later years of his career for reasons that continue to elude understanding. Teheran didn't get great strikeout numbers, nor did he keep the ball on the ground consistently; he possessed a very odd and seemingly random skill to induce pop-ups, and when he got hit...he got hit hard. Time and time again, though, Teheran just sort of figured it out.
That is somewhat similar to Perez, although the two pitchers do have some key differences. When Perez is bad, he is really bad, and while Tuesday's performance was wild, the guy did also give up four runs in five innings of work, so you probably shouldn't be making space on his mantle for a Cy Young.
But the Braves don't need him to be that guy. They need a starter who provides some decent innings and bridges the gap until arms like Hurston Waldrep and Spencer Schwellenbach are ready to return from the injured list. If Atlanta was banking on Perez for 160 innings this year, his peripherals, averaging out with his actual production, would be more concerning. However, for a guy that just needs to be good enough in the short-term, riding the Perez wave and seeing how far it takes the Perez is more than acceptable. For now, just enjoy it and don't think too hard about it.
Add us as a preferred source on Google