Prospect Profile: Chris Perez
There’s not much to say about Chris Perez that we really don’t already know, but hey…it’s winter and pitchers and catchers are still a few weeks away from reporting, so what the hey…
Background
Selected in the supplemental 1st round in the 2006 draft out of the U. of Miami-FL, where he spent most of his collegiate career basically doing what he does now. He was not drafted out of high school. He also was criminology major, so when he’s not playing baseball you can catch him patrolling the mean streets of Miami with his partner Shaq.
The scouts
Perez is filthy, and probably has the best pure stuff of any pitcher in the system. Tall and strong, Perez has a 90-95 MPH fastball that touches 98; a hard breaking slider, and he even mixes is a curveball now and then. All of his pitches rate as plus to plus-plus pitches, there’s not a weak link in his arsenal. His only weakness is a lack of command, and it’s a rather glaring one. He needs to work on repeating his arm slot and delivery. The slider breaks away from right-handed batters, and some scouts have made lofty comparisons to Brad Lidge’s slider. He can probably survive by being “effectively wild” to some extent, but needs to polish his command in order to reach full potential. He does a good job of keeping the ball down. If you’ve ever read stories about Perez, you usually hear a quote or two about how he loves to get the ball when it’s close and late.
The stats
If you just look at his K’s and opponents batting averages (not shown), he’s just been scary good. The big issue: Perez can be his own worst enemy. In 84 professional innings, he’s allowed just 43 hits, but has walked 60, hit 13 batsmen and thrown 13 wild pitches. The big oddity with Perez is his handling of left-handed batters. He is equally tough to hit facing either, and strikes both out with regularity, but he walks them twice as often. (10.31 BB/9 against 5.2 BB/9.) AZ hypothesized earlier that he may be trying too hard to freeze them on a backdoor slider and that’s a plausible guess. His coaches want him to throw the curve more and that could be the reason why. If he could use the curve as his breaking pitch against lefties while trusting the slider against right-handers then that should solve some of the needless wildness. His command eroded with his promotion to Memphis, and it carried over into the Arizona Fall League, where he lost his job as Team USA’s closer. Hopefully he’ll pull the train back on the track this spring.
The future
College closers are a weird lot and I’m not sure how great of an idea they are to draft. I understand the point; the good ones usually have dynamic stuff and team’s hope to fast track them to the big leagues. But for every Chad Cordero and Huston Street, you have a Craig Hansen or Joey Devine. Perez’s career has mirrored Devine’s the most because of all the walks, and Devine’s stock eroded to the point where he was traded to the rebuilding A’s for the charred remains of Mark Kotsay. It’s still too early to write off Devine’s career, but hopefully Perez fairs a lot better. There’s no question that Perez will pitch in the big leagues, probably as soon as next season. The question is whether or not he’ll be able to assume the closer’s role. There are some examples of pitchers who’ve ironed out their issues; Bobby Jenks was the Minister of Silly Walks throughout the minors, allowing 6 per 9 innings. And Jenks displayed extemporary control last season. The aforementioned Lidge is a little wild still, and there’s no doubting he has stuff aplenty to close. We’ll have to sit back and watch what happens. I can’t wait to see what he does this spring, as he’ll be in camp with the big boys.
Filed under: Chris Perez, prospect profiles
erik
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fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
“The big oddity with Perez is his handling of left-handed batters. He is equally tough to hit facing either, and strikes both out with regularity, but he walks them twice as often. (10.31 BB/9 against 5.2 BB/9.) AZ hypothesized earlier that he may be trying too hard to freeze them on a backdoor slider and that’s a plausible guess. ”
I have a different theory. When facing a hitter on the arm side, it’s easier to throw a breaking ball because there is a reference point. For instance, aim the slider at the batter’s hip, or at his shoulder blade for a curveball. When the batter is on the other side, the reference point is gone. He’s aiming at a big patch of air.
I would guess he can’t throw off-speed pitches for strikes to left handed hitters.
You know, we constantly hear the Brad Lidge comparisons, due to the slider. To me, though, Perez’s stuff is most similar to Joe Nathan. Lidge had a straighter, harder fastball to go with his slider. Perez and Nathan throw with a little les velocity, but much better movement. Their sliders are very similar, with a slightly smaller, but later, break than Lidge’s. The seldom used but above average curveball really cements the deal for me. (If I remember correctly, Nathan had some similar control problems early in his career also.).
I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Perez pitch quite a few times, both on television, (at Miami) and in person in Springfield. I agree with your sentiment regarding his approach to lefties. He tries much too hard to trick them; backdooring a bunch of sliders and trying to get them to chase fastballs well up and out of the zone. If his coaches are telling him to use the curveball more, I’m going to throw my own hat into the same ring. It’s not as impressive as his slider, for pure shock and awe, but it’s still a really nasty pitch that could be a definite asset to Perez’s repertoire. He just doesn’t seem to trust it. I really do hope Perez gets his stuff under control, because although you see the occasional rough outing from him, at times he may be the single most terrifyingly overpowering pitcher I’ve ever personally seen. When he’s going good, batters literally don’t have any sort of chance. If things break well, the Cards could be set up beautifully at the back end of games for years, between Perez and Todd.
A man can dream.
BTW, did you guys see Goold’s new blog post about various top 30s? http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/bird-land/bird-land/2008/01/surveying-the-various-top-30s/
FR is given a few compliments.
For a guy like Perez, pushing a 2nd breaking pitch might not be the best idea. Not sure he has the command to throw both, because it can be difficult to throw a slider and a curveball without one affecting the other.
I’d rather he work exclusively fastball/slider. His stuff is plenty good enough, and it may help his command.
unless maybe he just gets his curveball as a show pitch that he can drop in for a strike in fastball counts. he doesn’t have to have two filthy breaking balls, but his slider is like lidge’s in that it is so nasty he hardly throws it for strikes. that has been a reason for lidge’s struggles lately people know they can lay off the slider. if you give them another off-speed pitch to worry about it will help you out a lot.
i did see that hugo, goold’s been pretty kind to us.
K Law came out with his top 100 list.
#5 Rasmus
#73 Boggs
#85 Garcia
No Perez or Anderson
I’m not sure if the gun is juiced at springfield or not I only watched 1 game while on vacation, that said Perez never threw less than 97 consistently 98 when he pitched other than sliders which are nasty after that heat coming in. He was by far the best pitcher on the mound that night and Adam Daniels had a no/no thru 5 innings
Thanks for the info. I loved it. He sounds sorta like Joba without control. Hopefully he’ll dominate like Gagne when he gets called up. Whens the first time he’ll play this year?