12-19-23 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on Twitter Pirates added another piece to their rotation as they signed southpaw Martín Pérez to a 1-year, $8M contract pending physical. After spending most of his career with the Texas Rangers over two separate...
12-19-23 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on Twitter
Pirates added another piece to their rotation as they signed southpaw Martín Pérez to a 1-year, $8M contract pending physical. After spending most of his career with the Texas Rangers over two separate stints, Pérez will look to rebound from a mediocre 2023 season after an All-Star year in 2022.
Pérez initially signed with the Rangers as an undrafted free agent in 2007, working his way through the minors before his debut on June 26, 2012. He would only pitch 38 innings in 2012 but was a full-time starter in 2012 for the Rangers, tallying 124.1 innings over 20 starts and posting a 3.62 ERA with a 10-6 record and finishing 6th in Rookie of the Year voting in the American League.
The next few seasons didn’t go as well for Pérez as his 2014 season was cut short after inflammation in his pitching elbow led to Tommy John surgery to repair a partially torn UCL, ending his 2014 and delaying his start to the 2015 season. Over those two years, he combined for just 130 innings with a 4.43 ERA and 83 strikeouts to 43 walks in that stretch.
Pérez bounced back with back to back seasons of 32+ starts, 185+ innings pitched and a WAR of 2.3 and 2.2, respectively. He would deal with discomfort in his right elbow during the 2018 season, leading to another year with less than 100 innings pitched before heading north to sign with the Minnesota Twins on a 1-year, $4M contract. He delivered with a 10-7 record over 32 games (29 starts), 165.1 innings and a 1.9 WAR.
He would spend 2020 and 2021 with the Boston Red Sox, totaling a 10-13 record, 4.65 ERA over 176 innings while posting a 102 ERA+ in that span before rejoining the Rangers.
Pérez posted a career-best turn in 2022, finishing with a 12-8 record, 2.89 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 196.1 innings pitched and 169 strikeouts. After accepting a qualifying offer for $19.65M to return for a 1-year deal in 2023, he tossed 141.2 innings split between starting and relief work, posting a 4.45 ERA and a 1.41 WHIP.
While he wasn’t a big part of the Rangers postseason roster (working just 4.2 innings of relief in that playoff run), Pérez comes to Pittsburgh fresh off a World Series parade and with 12 years of big league experience to share with a very young roster.
His arsenal works primarily off of a low-90s sinker, which has helped generate a 49.1% career groundball rate for Pérez. Pairing that with low-90s cutter and a mid-80s changeup, Pérez mixes speeds and location to keep opponents off balance.
He is a prototypical soft-tossing southpaw, with a career strikeout rate of 16% and walk rate of 8.3%. Despite this, he typically gives up soft contact when he is able to work low in the zone and force mistakes by hitters. Even when he does allow hard contact – like when he surrendered 21 home runs in 2023 – these numbers will most likely benefit from friendly terrains of PNC Park, which would have held 5 of those longballs in the yard.
Look, there will be fans who get mad at any and every transaction the Pirates make this offseason, big or small, but adding a veteran with the experience and pedigree of Pérez for a below market value deal will likely lead this to being a solid signing in the long run.
