Pirates sign veteran left-hander Perez
It’s the type of signing for which Pirates fans have been waiting.
And growing more than a little frustrated.
But on Monday night, the Pirates addressed their starting rotation in a fairly impactful and recognizable way, signing veteran lefthander Martin Perez to a one year, $8 million contract via free agency, sources told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The deal is pending a physical.
It’s also the type of signing that made plenty of sense for them all along, and it involved someone who helped the Texas Rangers defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series.
Perez, 32, has spent nine of his 12 major league seasons with the Rangers during two separate stints, returning in 2022.
Since that time, Perez has pitched in 67 games, making 52 starts. He’s 22-12 with a 3.54 in 338 innings, plus 118 walks, 262 strikeouts and a 3.99 FIP.
Perez did experience a regression this past season after his All-Star 2022, during which he had a 2.89 ERA and worked 196 1/3 innings.
The move is the second involving starting pitching this offseason for the Pirates, who traded for Marco Gonzales at the Winter Meetings. Those two figure to join Mitch Keller to give the Pirates at least three known commodities.
Going deeper, for the team to win more than 76 games, it absolutely needs to see the development of Quinn Priester, Roansy Contreras and Luis Ortiz, as well as the midseason arrivals of Paul Skenes, JT Brubaker, Mike Burrows, Jared Jones and more.
It’s also likely the Pirates aren’t done adding pitching, either through free agency or trade.
The Perez move, though, was a smart one, even if he seems to profile as an eventual trade candidate.
Perez primarily throws sinkers and changeups and tends to get a lot of ground balls. He ranked in the 71st percentile in MLB in ground-ball rate this past season. It’s actually somewhat similar to Gonzales, though with likely a little less spin and some additional velocity.
In 2023, Perez averaged 91.6 mph with his sinker. That pitch sat at 92.6 mph in 2022. He also likes to use a hard cutter.
Similar to Gonzales, Perez produced strong peripheral numbers that likely enticed the Pirates, such as his 8.4% walk rate in 2023 or 51.4% ground-ball rate.
In PNC Park, we’ve seen left-handed pitchers find a lot of success against lineups full of righties, leveraging the North Side Notch and deeper pull-side dimensions.
Two years ago, Perez racked up an impressive 5.0 wins above replacement (WAR), according to Baseball-Reference, which isn’t exactly typical for a Pirates free agent signing.
Perez accepted a qualifying offer from the Rangers before this past season but saw his role decrease after Texas added Max Scherzer and Jordan Montgomery at the trade deadline.
To his credit, Perez did finish the year strong, pitching to a 1.50 ERA with a 1.98 batting average against in his final 11 games (24 innings) while shifting to more of a relief role.
The attractive thing for Perez in Pittsburgh is likely opportunity. He’s knows he’ll start every fifth day and be counted upon to eat innings, which the Pirates need. They could also use someone with his experience.
A native of Guanare, Venezuela, Perez has gone 85-81 with a 4.44 ERA in 288 games (243 starts) over a dozen seasons, averaging 3.2 walks and 6.3 strikeouts per nine.
It will be interesting to see what the Pirates do with Perez to try and find improvement. His cutter wasn’t particularly good this past season, and they could potentially drill deeper into the shape, execution or consistent of that pitch. It was a much bigger weapon for Perez during his 2022 season.