How Royals’ Salvador Perez fixed his biggest weakness at age 33: ‘Really remarkable’

Detroit Tigers second baseman Colt Keith pushed his palm toward the ground a few times, making his message clear to home-plate umpire CB Bucknor.

That pitch was low.

Bucknor’s decision had already been made, though. The 1-0 pitch — in the second inning of Friday’s Royals-Tigers game in Detroit — was called a strike, even if Keith was technically correct. The pitch was below the strike zone, crossing the plate just 17.4 inches above the ground.

It looked like a strike to Bucknor, but only appeared that way thanks to the man in front of him.

Royals catcher Salvador Perez kept his glove low as Seth Lugo delivered the pitch. Once it hit his mitt, Perez brought the ball up, keeping his motion smooth ahead of Bucknor’s view behind the plate.

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None of this happened by accident. Perez — at age 33 — has diligently worked the last two years with the new Royals coaching staff to capitalize on moments like this.

The five-time Gold Glover has not stayed stuck in his ways. He hasn’t decided that there’s no improvement left for him.

And because of that, he’s given the Royals a considerable boost behind the plate this year, turning his career-long greatest weakness into a sudden (and emerging) strength.

Perez has become an above-average pitch-framer this year — ranking ninth out of 62 MLB catchers as of Sunday, according to Statcast.

“Last year, he got better,” Royals second-year catching instructor Paul Hoover said, “but obviously not as good as he’s doing now.”

So, how far has Perez come? To answer that, we need to start with where he’s been.

Though excellent in other areas of catcher defense (like pickoff throws and pop time to second base), Perez has long lagged behind his peers in pitch framing — the art of presenting pitches while trying to get extra strikes.

Statcast provides the proof. From 2015-24 — as far as the data goes back — Perez is worst in the MLB in pitch-framing, costing the Royals 88 runs in that time.

“One thing about Sal, he’s a realist. And he knows that his numbers have not been good,” Hoover said. “And he’s willing to try anything and do anything to make himself better.”

To be fair to Perez, this hasn’t just been his issue; it’s been a Royals one. Since 2015, no team has paid less attention to framing than KC has.

It’s started an ugly streak. The Royals, since 2015, have never had a season in which they’ve been an above-average framing team.

Until — potentially — this year.

Perez has had the most to do with that, with Royals manager Matt Quatraro saying the veteran catcher has a mindset of wanting to improve.

It hasn’t been an immediate process.

Perez and Hoover began discussing pitch-framing improvements before last year, which also has required daily training to break some old habits.

Hoover — previously catching coordinator for the Tampa Bay Rays, a team that specializes in capitalizing on small edges like pitch-framing — knew one thing was most important: Perez had to scoot up.

Because he was so far back from the hitter, Perez was catching low pitches further away from the plate. That meant on some pitches — like one from 2018, which crossed at the same height as Friday’s strike call vs. the Tigers — Perez was receiving borderline pitches with his glove touching the dirt.

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Making a change took trust. Perez had to believe in Hoover that getting closer to batters wasn’t going to result in his glove getting hit by additional swings. Hoover also communicated that moving up meant foul tips would hit Perez’s mitt more often, meaning he’d get hit less by fouls behind the plate.

“He was super far away from the plate two years ago — probably one of the worst,” Hoover said. “And now he’s up there with the best guys.”

That’s only been part of Perez’s evolution. Hoover said that when Perez is not doing well with his framing, he takes an indirect route to the ball. He starts above it, then goes down for the pitch, then brings it back up.

In essence, it’s a bouncing motion.

Constant drills now train something different. Perez keeps his glove mostly still and low as the pitch comes in, then works on receiving it low-to-high — one of the biggest keys to making low pitches look like strikes.

Previous-year examples — on similar pitches at the same height below the strike zone — show just how much progress he’s made.

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“There’s a plethora of pitches he’s been super excited about, I’ve been super excited about. The pitching staff, the catching department are like, ‘Wow. Man, he’s improving,’” Hoover said. “It’s really cool to see, and really cool to be a part of.”

One other shift: Hoover has worked with Perez to eliminate a flinch he had when receiving the ball when a batter swung. That previously resulted in excess movement behind the plate, which hurt Perez during the framing process.

Hoover has been creative with his re-training methods here. During pregame work, Hoover often has a batter next to Perez while receiving pitches. The Royals utilize softer balls for this drill, then have that batter swing, check-swing and even foul-tip pitches to get Perez comfortable with a bat and ball flying in front of him.

After every game, Perez and Hoover examine a pitch-framing grade card created by the Royals’ research and development department. Those have indicated the same findings as Statcast’s data:

Perez is getting better at this.

The most significant improvement has been making lower pitches strikes. Two years ago, for instance, Perez was seventh-worst in baseball in turning low “Shadow Zone” pitches above the plate into strikes — ones that get called strikes 47-48% of the time. His success rate then was 37%.

This year? Perez is 16th out of 62 catchers with a 58% success rate on those same pitches.

It’s just part of Perez trending toward his best full-season framing year.

How much might this help? A rough approximation is that 10 runs equal one win, so Perez moving from below-average to above-average could potentially result in a few-win swing this season.

It might have other ramifications, too. Perez could be looking at a potential Hall of Fame case in a few years, and the fact that he’s improving his greatest weakness late in his career could shift his WAR-type stats to a mark where he’d be a more likely selection.

Hoover said the best part about Perez, though, is this transformation hasn’t been about improving personal stats.

It’s about trying to help the Royals win.

“The way he understands that he maybe has been a little bit deficient in that area and attacked it full-on,” Hoover said, “has been really remarkable.”