Chicago Cubs Invite Former A's Catcher to Camp

The Chicago Cubs will be the first club to play the Athletics when they open up their new temporary home in Sacramento for the 2025 season. While the ballpark itself isn't new, it will be a new place to watch A's baseball.

One of the players on the Cubs that will be hoping to make that trek to Sacramento will be catcher Carlos Pérez, who was with the Athletics in 2023 as the team's backup option to Shea Langeliers, and re-signed with the club on a minor-league deal last season, though he did not make it back to Oakland.

That 2023 campaign had been his first spin in the bigs since 2018 when he played for both the Atlanta Braves and Texas Rangers. With the A's, Pérez ended up hitting .226 with a .293 OBP and six home runs across 189 plate appearances. He's certainly a worth backup or depth option.

Pérez, 34, spent all of 2024 in Triple-A and ended up hitting .260 with a .344 on-base and 27 home runs, with his home games being played in Las Vegas, which is among the more hitter-friendly parks in the Pacific Coast League.

While it's not much to go on, given the A's pitching staff in 2023 ranked 29th in ERA at 5.48, when Pérez was behind the dish, those pitchers did end up having a little more success than they did with Langeliers, granted in a much smaller sample size.

Langeliers held a 5.48 ERA, right in line with the team's ERA as a whole, while Pérez held a 5.33. It's a subtle difference, but it could end up being a skill that helps him land with Chicago at some point in 2025.

Right now, Roster Resource has Miguel Amaya as the starting catcher for the Cubs, with Carson Kelly serving as the backup option. Neither player is projected to be above league average at the plate, with Amaya being just below average with a 99 wRC+ (100 is league average), and Kelly projected for a 92.

The more interesting battle may be for which catcher stays in the organization out of camp, with soon-to-be 30-year-old Reese McGuire also getting an invite. Chicago has four catchers headed to spring training as non-roster invitees that don't have 40-man spots, and they have five backstops total that are projected to begin the year in Triple-A.

There is a chance that either McGuire, a left-hander, or Pérez, the righty, end up elsewhere towards the end of camp due to a roster squeeze. McGuire has more of a track record of playing time in the bigs, especially recently, but from what Pérez showed in Oakland in 2023, he may have the better bat if given an opportunity.

This battle, along with whether one of them can reach the bigs leagues this season, will be something to watch as camp opens up.