What has been a deafeningly silent offseason for the Boston Red Sox has gotten a tinge of a decibel to it. The Red Sox signed former Gold Glove-winning catcher Roberto Perez, according to Jon Heyman of The New York Post. It’s a minor league deal, as Perez gets invited to the major league camp. Perez will get a $1.4 million base salary if he makes the roster.
Former Gold Glover Signs with the Red Sox
Perez is a two-time Gold Glove winner. As a member of the now-Cleveland Guardians, he also won the Wilson Defensive Player of the Year award in 2019. Injuries have since derailed the defensive expert Perez once was. After two outstanding defensive seasons in Cleveland, Perez only made 46 appearances in 2021. Perez batted a dismal .149 but did have seven home runs and 17 RBIS. The club declined to pick up his option for 2022, making him a free agent.
The Steel City and the City by the Bay
Perez signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates for the 2022 season. Due to a hamstring injury, Perez was limited to only 21 games. Perez was batting .233, with two home runs and eight RBI, before he had surgery on said hamstring, ending his season and career with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He signed a minor league deal with the San Francisco Giants before the 2023 season. The 35-year-old made the 40-man roster out of Spring Training. However, less than a month into the season, Perez suffered a rotator cuff injury requiring surgery. For the second season in a row, Perez would miss the remainder of the season with an injury.
Beantown
As this writer has stated before, and what is also a well-known adage, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. The Red Sox fired Chaim Bloom because his “frugal” philosophy of finding a “diamond in the rough” was not getting results in the field. Yet, even with a new Chief Baseball Officer, Craig Breslow, the Red Sox are continuing the same philosophical approach.
What the Signing of Perez Means
The hope is that Perez can set the clock back four to five seasons and be the catcher he was in Cleveland. Yet, and to no fault, he has played about two months of baseball. Sure, it is a minor league deal he has been signed to, but what is the objective? It is similar to buying a car from a salvage yard. In the buyer’s eyes, that 1979 Corvette was a beauty. The buyer is hoping to restore it to its former glory. To do that, said buyer must put in much time and money. Restoring the Corvette costs more than if the owner had just bought a newer, fully functioning Corvette. The same concept applies to the Red Sox. They just put money into a player who may or may not return to his former glory.
Takeaway
The Red Sox signed former two-time Gold Glove winner Roberto Perez to a minor league contract. It’s not exactly the hot stove news Sox fans were yearning for, but it’s something. The Red Sox are hoping that Perez can return to the player he was before injuries prematurely ended both of his previous two seasons. The signing of Perez under new Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow and the lack of any big-name signings, to this point, in free agency show the Red Sox may be sticking with Bloom’s analytics-driven approach that did not work for Bloom in Boston and was the reason he was fired. As free agency continues in Major League Baseball, the only thing continuing for baseball in Boston seems to be insanity.
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