Royals’ catching depth will be under the microscope next season
Backing up Kansas City Royals All-Star catcher Salvador Perez may never be considered a glamour position. After all, the guy behind the guy is often viewed as just another guy.
This season will almost assuredly play out differently for Perez, however. Coming off a season on the injured list following Tommy John surgery on his throwing arm, Perez will not dive right back into everyday catching.
With a reduced workload behind the plate, the No. 2 catcher spot should take on greater importance in 2020. It will present an interesting choice out of spring camp between Cam Gallagher and Meibrys Viloria.
“I think it definitely makes it a little bit different than what it would normally be,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “If you saw a guy who might get a start a week, or maybe two, it’s going to look a little different from that at the outset at least.”
The Royals will ease Perez, who’ll turn 30 in May, back into the lineup next season and attempt to mitigate the impact of his catching duties by likely having him serve as designated hitter and play first base.
That opens the door for the backup catcher to play much more of a 1A role than a clear No. 2 seeing limited action. Perez started a career-high 143 games at catcher in 2014 followed by 137 starts in 2015, but injury and ailments cut him down to 128 starts behind the plate in 2016, 113 in 2017 and 96 in 2018.
Now, his time behind the plate will be largely dictated by the fact that he’s coming back from major surgery.
“Knowing what our trainers are talking about now, we’re going to have to be very careful and watch his arm as best as possible,” Matheny said. “We’ll follow that, and that creates opportunity.
“At that point, we have to start weighing, what does it mean? If we have enough offense, do we have somebody that’s going to present an opportunity to really call a good game, to work with the staff.”
Gallagher went into last season as the presumed backup to Perez, and he remained in that role when Perez got hurt and the Royals signed Martin Maldonado.
Gallagher, who made his major-league debut in 2017, has built a reputation as a solid defensive catcher, particularly in regard to handling a pitching staff and pitch framing.
Offensively, Gallagher, 26, batted .100 (4-for-40) in his first 14 games of the season, but hit .302 (26-for-86) in his last 31 games. Seven of his last 12 hits were extra-base hits (five doubles, two home runs) before he went on the injured list because of an oblique injury on Aug. 8.
While the club activated him in September, he didn’t play in the final month.
Viloria, who turns 23 in February, has a higher ceiling than and has the potential to one day become an everyday starting catcher. He’ll enter this season having caught just 52 games in the majors, 42 of which came last summer after the Royals traded Maldonado.
Viloria has a very good throwing arm behind the plate — he threw out 38% of attempted base stealers during his stint in the majors last season — and his catcher’s ERA of 4.90 (albeit in 42 games) ranked first among Royals catchers.
He slowed down offensively in the summer. He batted .263 with seven RBIs through his first 11 games, but he finished the season hitting .211.
While Viloria being left-handed may fit better in some ways as a counterpart to the right-handed hitting Perez (Gallagher is right-handed), there’s also a strong case for allowing Viloria to play everyday behind the plate in Triple-A, a level at which he still hasn’t played.
Gallagher also has more experience with the pitching staff and in the major leagues.
“I tend to put a lot of weight on (the ability to call a game and work with the staff), and I kind of watch that position pretty close and realize that I know Viloria is growing, but I also know that Cam Gallagher has won the confidence of a number of his teammates, especially the pitchers,” said Matheny, a former Gold Glove winning catcher.
“So I think he brings something unique to the table. We’re always trying to figure out how this team can be better, and there’s going to be significant opportunity, especially you talk in the first month at least of this season that typically a guy like Salvy would just kind of take the reins and go.”
A consideration for the organization will also be the fact that both Viloria and Gallagher each have just one minor-league option left, and sticking with one option may make more sense in order to keep multiple options on the table in 2021.
This story was originally published December 11, 2019 at 3:16 PM.
