In 2021, Salvador Perez broke the home run record for catchers, hitting 48 bombs and knocking in 121 runners. He was advertised as a superstar offensive player and regarded as the best catcher in the game by media outlets and writers. He was the starting catcher for the AL All-Star Team and finished 7th in AL MVP voting. But what if I told you Salvador Perez actually wasn’t as good as he was made out to be?

Hopefully I haven’t already lost a bunch of readers who angrily closed the tab because they have declared that I know absolutely nothing about baseball. People loved Salvy’s home run numbers in 2021. They loved the RBI count. They loved the .273 average, his 2nd highest since he started getting regular at-bats in 2013. Most of his Baseball Savant peripherals were great. He ranked in the 94th percentile in Average Exit Velocity, 99th in HardHit%, and 93rd in Barrel%, which all pointed to an elite offensive bat. But where the highs were high for the 32 year-old backstop, the lows were even lower.

The Offense

It may be shocking to some to see struggle, offense, and Salvador Perez in the same sentence, but there were legitimate concerns about his offensive game in 2021. First off, his ability to make contact was drastically reduced. His strikeout rate rose to a career high 28.1%, and his chase and whiff rates were in the 1st and 6th percentiles, respectively. When he makes contact, he is absolutely one of the best pure hitters in the game. But Perez became more of a one dimensional offensive player than he ever had, and while his power did reach new found heights with a.270 ISO, the abominable strikeout and walk rates drove down his wRC+ and WAR significantly.

Perez had a 127 wRC+ in 2022, good for 6th amongst Major League catchers (Min. 375 PA). Very respectable, yes, but not nearly as high as you would expect for a guy with a home run and RBI count like Salvy’s. Another stat that I found surprising was of the top 8 home run hitters in the major leagues, Salvador Perez had the worst wRC+ of those 8, despite leading the league in dingers. His offensive WAR (21.1) was a whopping 11.7 wins lower than the 2nd lowest total (Brandon Lowe, 32.8 WAR, 38 homers) of those top 8. The power of Perez just didn’t hold enough value compared to his dismal walk and strikeout rates, shooting down his advanced batting stats and giving baseball fans a confusing statistical evaluation of his 2021 season.

The Defense

This is where the year of Salvador Perez gets even worse. Perez was always known as a strong defensive catcher prior to 2021, as he threw runners out at a high rate and always had a high fielding percentage. He was the recipient of 4 gold gloves, beating out the likes of Yadier Molina, Buster Posey, and other top defensive backstops. However, with a look into some more advanced metrics, you could see how unbelievably bad the defense of Perez was in 2021.

Perez produced a -5 DRS in 2021, the lowest of his career. For catchers with 500 or more innings caught, Perez ranked 30th of 35 qualified in Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). It doesn't stop there. Perez had a -10.3 Defensive WAR, 2nd worst only to Zack Collins. This number was determined not only by his lackluster DRS but also his abysmal framing rate. Perez just was worse than Collins in this stat, and produced a -18 catcher framing runs, nearly two times as low as Collins’ -10. In fact, framing has long been an issue for Perez. Since Baseball Savant started tracking frame rates, Perez ranks dead last in framing runs, with -78. The 2nd lowest is Robinson Chirinos with -47. In 2021, Perez was one of the worst defenders in all of baseball, raising question marks on his All-Star nod and MVP votes.

Overall

While I don’t want this to be a complete teardown of what Perez did in 2021, it does need to be said how overrated he was by fans and media. As previously mentioned, Perez finished 7th (!!!) in AL MVP voting despite having a higher WAR than just 3 of the 14 players that finished behind him in the voting. Perez had a solid season, he really did. His offense was above average, and he produced the 2nd highest WAR of his career. However, his success was blown out of proportion and his defense was historically bad, and it’s important to not leave any stone unturned when analyzing his record-setting 2021 season.