Comments on: Prospect Profile: Chris Perez

By: Bananas

Bananas — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:18:38 +0000

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?

By: JDod

JDod — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:26:30 +0000

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

By: charlie

charlie — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:02:03 +0000

K Law came out with his top 100 list.

#5 Rasmus
#73 Boggs
#85 Garcia

No Perez or Anderson

By: erik

erik — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:26:08 +0000

i did see that hugo, goold’s been pretty kind to us.

By: fewgoodcards

fewgoodcards — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:38:30 +0000

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.

By: SB12

SB12 — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:03:36 +0000

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.

By: Hugo

Hugo — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:07:27 +0000

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.

By: the red baron

the red baron — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:34:24 +0000

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.

By: SB12

SB12 — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 05:33:15 +0000

“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.