Fourth Silver Slugger pushes Perez past Brett for most in Kansas City Royals history
No catcher in major-league history experienced a more productive season, offensively, than Kansas City Royals star Salvador Perez this year. Perez’s monumental accomplishments at the plate were recognized with a franchise-record fourth American League Silver Slugger Award.
Major League Baseball revealed the Silver Slugger winners, recognizing the top offensive player at each position in each league, on MLB Network late Thursday afternoon. Perez beat New York Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez and Tampa Bay Rays catcher Mike Zunino for the honor. Managers and coaches from the respective leagues voted on the awards.
Perez, having previously won the honor in 2016, 2018 and 2020, broke a tie with Hall of Famer and Royals legend George Brett for the most Silver Sluggers in franchise history.
Brett, who is enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, won three Silver Sluggers, including two as a third baseman (1980, 1985) as well as one as a first baseman (1988). The award’s inaugural season was 1980, and Brett debuted in 1973.
Perez has now won Silver Sluggers in back-to-back seasons and each of the last three seasons he has played, excluding the 2019 season he missed following Tommy John surgery.
This season, Perez, 31, led the majors with 121 RBIs and tied for the lead with 48 home runs along with Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Perez’s 48 home runs matched Jorge Soler’s single-season franchise record set in 2019.
Perez batted .273, and his .859 OPS was a career high for a full-length season, as was his .544 slugging percentage (10th-best in MLB). He registered an OPS+ of 126.
Of Perez’s 48 homers, 18 gave the Royals a lead. That total matched St. Louis’ Nolan Arenado for the most in the majors. Perez also led the majors with 34 multi-RBI games, and he tied for third in the majors with 29 go-ahead RBIs.
Perez became the sixth player in the last 30 years to lead the majors in both home runs and RBIs. He was the first Royal to hold at least a share of the majors lead in home runs and the second Royal to lead the majors in RBIs (Hal McRae, 1982).
By leading the majors in both home runs and RBIs, Perez became just the second primary catcher (at least 75% of his games at catcher) to lead in both, the other having been Hall of Famer Johnny Bench in 1970 and 1972.
Perez also surpassed the previous record of 45 home runs for a primary catcher set by Bench in 1970.
Perez played a career-high 161 games, including an MLB-best 120 starts at catcher, and matched Hall of Famer Ted Simmons’ mark set in 1973 for the most games by a primary catcher in a single season. Perez logged the fourth-most innings caught of any catcher in the majors this season.
This summer, Perez earned his seventh MLB All-Star Game selection and was voted the starter for the AL for the sixth time in his career.
This offseason, he has already won the Luis Aparicio Award as the top Venezuelan player in Major League Baseball this season. A panel of MLB executives recognized Perez as the top catcher in the majors by selecting him to the Sporting News All-Star Team.
Perez was also a finalist for the AL Gold Glove as the top defensive catcher as well as the AL Hank Aaron Award as the top overall offensive performer in the league.
This story was originally published November 11, 2021 at 5:36 PM.
