What can Kansas City Royals expect for encore after Salvador Perez’s historic home run year?
Thirty home runs and 100 RBIs. Those were the ambitious-yet-attainable goals that Kansas City Royals All-Star catcher Salvador Perez set for himself before last season. He’d never reached either of those plateaus entering 2021, but he hadn’t fallen so short as to make them seem far-fetched.
Then Perez hit 48 home runs in one of the most prolific offensive seasons of any catcher in MLB history, entertaining and enrapturing Royals followers with his exploits as he set career highs and shot past the legendary Johnny Bench into the record books last season.
But it’s dicey to go into a season expecting Perez to provide an encore, right? Lightning striking in the same place twice in two years. It’s a huge ask of anybody to replicate that sort of production. Isn’t it?
“I don’t think for a second that’s his best,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said when the question was posed to him. “He showed everything we needed to see. And he’s hungry enough. He’s teachable. There’s no reason why he can’t build on where he was. So, we haven’t even had that conversation. We’ve celebrated big time what he did. It was so impressive.
“But until you just said that, it never crossed my mind, ‘There’s no way he could do that again.’ That hasn’t even been in my atmosphere. That’s what he’s going to do. I can’t wait to see what he’s going to do better. That’s where my head is, and I hope that’s where his is. I’m not going to put a limit on them. One of the things I love about these guys is, you can’t limit the human spirit. You can’t.”
Last season, Perez powered his way to his fourth Silver Slugger award, led the majors in RBIs with 121 and tied for the lead in home runs.
He became the sixth player in the last 30 years to lead the majors in both home runs and RBIs, joining Giancarlo Stanton (2017), Chris Davis (2013), Miguel Cabrera (2012), Ryan Howard (2006, 2008), and Álex Rodríguez (2002, 2007).
Perez tied the Royals single-season home run record set by his friend and offseason training partner Jorge Soler in 2019. Perez’s 48 homers were the most in a season for a primary catcher (at least 75% of games played at catcher) in major-league history.
He 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.
Perez surpassed the previous record of 45 set by the Hall of Famer Bench in 1970. By leading the majors in both home runs and RBIs, Perez became just the second primary catcher to lead in both, the other having been Bench in 1970 and 1972.
Not thinking about 50
Yeah, Perez more than covered those 30 home runs and 100 RBIs he’d aimed for last spring training.
“That was my goal,” Perez said. “Now I did it. Hopefully I can continue to do it and help my team. Hit as many as I can, as many home runs as I can, as many RBIs as I can, try to be the best behind home plate. But I don’t try to think about now I’ve got to try to go hit 50. It’s not that easy. It’s not going to be that easy. I’m going to try to do my job, hit the ball hard and see what happens.”
Perez, who’ll turn 32 in May, played a career-high 161 games, including an MLB-best 120 starts at catcher last season. He earned his seventh MLB All-Star Game selection.
Defensively, he led all catchers with 12 double plays, threw out at MLB-best 44% (18 of 41) of runners attempting stolen bases, led all AL catchers with a .998 fielding percentage and four pickoffs.
A five-time AL Gold Glove winner, Perez was a finalist for that award last season.
A typical offseason for Perez features training in the Miami area with Royals bench coach Pedro Grifol directing the defensive skills work and special assignment hitting coach Mike Tosar guiding Perez’s hitting refinement.
Because of the MLB lockout this winter, Perez could not have contact with Grifol, Tosar or anyone else from the Royals. Perez said vice president of major league team operations Jeff Davenport sent him a bunch of baseballs and a pitching machine prior to the beginning of the lockout.
Perez, who regularly trained with a group of major-leaguers, including Soler this winter, did his best to replicate the offseason work he’d usually done with the coaches.
After all, that combination helped Perez turn in one of the best seasons ever by a catcher. That’s not something he’ll easily forget, but it’s also not something he’ll linger on.
“They were kind of reminding me of that everyday everywhere I go. ‘Good season. Good season,’” Perez said of the offseason. “You know what, it’s in the past. As a professional player, it’s over. This year is a new season. I’m going to try to do the same or better. You guys know me. I like to compete and play and play hard every day. Yeah, I’m happy for last year, but it’s over.”
This story was originally published March 15, 2022 at 9:14 AM.
