Salvador Perez: Franchise icon

We'll get to watch him move up the all-time franchise leaderboards these next several seasons.

With Salvador Perez signing an extension to keep him Kansas City through at least 2025, he’s poised to enter the pantheon of Royals’ all-time great position players. In my analysis of the contract, I used the term “franchise icon” to describe Perez. That’s something you can say about just a handful of Royals players through history.

With five seasons* of Perez in the lineup ahead of us, I thought it would be a fun exercise to peer into the future. He’s already knocking on the door to several franchise offensive top 10 lists, if he hasn’t already broken through. By the time his contract is up, where will he land on those lists?

*For purposes of my own sanity, I’m not including his option year in this exercise. If Dayton Moore is still around, the option will not only be picked up, but they’ll probably tack on a new two or three-year deal in place. So I’m just going to “scientifically” project the next five years.

On the tables below, you’ll see the current franchise top 10 for that category on the left. On the right is where Perez could possibly end up after the next five seasons. You’ll see a lot of the same names on the leaderboards. Familiar names. For all the history with this franchise, there are just a handful of greats. You can argue that Perez is already walking amongst them. If he’s not currently, he’s certainly on the path to join them at some point during his new contract.

Let’s begin.

Games Played

Perez played in 138 games on average in the five full seasons before he missed all of 2019 rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. That’s a lot of mileage for a catcher and as I mentioned in writing up his extension, the Royals are paying for what will amount to his decline. They will need to be more proactive in keeping him fresh behind the plate to prevent a breakdown. Then again, Yadier Molina averaged 130 games a year for the Cardinals in his age 31 through 35 seasons.

So let’s pencil in Perez for averaging 130 games a year for the Royals over the next five seasons. Here’s how the games played leaderboard looks now, with how it projects to look after the 2026 season.

Perez is pretty much a lock to finish this contract at number seven on the all-time games played leaderboard. He’s just 303 games away from passing Mike Sweeney, so it should happen sometime in early 2023. After that, the gap between Sweeney and Alex Gordon is extremely large. It will take more than the option year for Perez to move any higher.

Total Bases

Perez cracked the top 10 in total bases last summer, passing Joe Randa and Alcides Escobar to climb the list.

In the five seasons before 2019, Perez averaged 228 total bases a year. This is where any kind of projections get tricky. Again, this is entirely unscientific. There’s no PECOTA mainframe or ZiPS spreadsheet I’m consulting going forward. I’m making three assumptions.

1) Perez’s offensive breakout last season was the real deal, but it was so extreme that it will be considered an outlier.

2) Perez’s production may have a few peaks over the next five seasons, but there will be a gradual decline baked in to his overall numbers.

3) Good health.

So I’m basically looking at his five year average before his Tommy John surgery and figuring that’s in the ballpark for what he will average in the next five years. Give or take. Again, the point behind this exercise is to guesstimate where Perez will end up on the Royals all-time leaderboards. Approximately. It’s not to pinpoint an exact number of games or total bases or (as you’ll see later) runs scored.

So if I figure Perez to be good for around 225 total bases a year over the next five, that works out to an additional 1,125 total bases on his career numbers.

Again, Perez is great value to pass Gordon and end up in fifth place all-time for Royals total bases. That 3,000 mark is quite a magic number in franchise history. Dayton Moore said at the press conference announcing the deal that he doesn’t think this extension will be the last contract for Perez. He’ll need at least the option year and probably one more to break that 3,000 number on total bases.

RBI

I don’t care too much about RBI as a statistic, but this is supposed to be a fun exercise and I’m not going to hate on having a little bit of fun. Perez has 535 career RBI, currently good for 10th place on the Royals all-time list. He averaged about 73 per season from 2014 to 2018, but I think he’s going to do better than that at least for the next couple of years given the Royals are finally putting some high OBP guys ahead of him in the lineup. Don’t discount the impact an Andrew Benintendi and Carlos Santana can have on Perez’s career RBI totals.

If I’m aggressive here and give Perez 80 RBI per year over the next five, he rockets up the list.

Just like 3,000 total bases, if Perez can stay healthy and maintain his usual level of productivity the magical 1,000 RBI mark is within reach. Yet it will take him at least the option year (and maybe one more after that) to get there.

Home Runs

Perez has always had modest power. Good power. He hit 27 dingers in 2017 and 2018 and topped 20 home runs in the two years before that. Of course, he went on a home run hitting binge in 2020, bashing 11 over the fences in just 37 games. He’s not going to keep that pace up (especially if the league is going to fiddle with the baseball, as reported), but the power is legit and something that I feel good projecting that will last into at least the first half of his 30s. Let’s be aggressive here (because aggressive projections are fun) and give him an average of 25 home runs over the next five seasons.

As you can see from the left side of the table, currently Perez is just 45 bombs away from taking over second place on the Royals’ all-time home run list. That’s going to happen. As a connoisseur of the home run, this is perhaps the best thing about this contract. Finally someone is going to put some numbers up on that leaderboard to make it a little less…anemic.

And if somehow Perez is one of those guys who starts hitting with insane amounts of power into his 30s, it’s possible he could chase down George Brett. Unlikely. But there’s a chance. Perez would probably need that option year and one more to do that, though.

Still…dingers!

bWAR

Here’s the big one. Perez has accumulated 24.2 bWAR over the course of his career. He averaged around 2.7 bWAR per year from 2014 to 2018. He finished 2020 with an astounding (for him) 2.1 bWAR in those 34 games. Truly a remarkable season.

(It should be noted that bWAR looks much more kindly at Perez’s defense than its counterpart at Fangraphs. At Fangraphs, Perez has 11.9 fWAR in his career, good for 20th on the Royals all-time list for position players. That’s not much fun.)

Again, looking at the improvements Perez has made at the plate along with the positive defensive metrics for the first time in years (even at Fangraphs!), let’s be generous and carry that average bWAR over for each of the next five seasons.

Perez likely finishes this contract behind two speed merchants in center and a first-ballot, inner-circle Hall of Famer. That’s some fantastic company in the pantheon of Royals’ greats.

When you’re talking franchise icons (among position players) you’re talking about guys like George Brett, Amos Otis, Hal McRae and Frank White during the original glory years. Mike Sweeney at the turn of the century. Most recently, Alex Gordon. Four of those six spent their entire career in Kansas City and the other two where here for the vast majority.

And now, with this new contract extension, Salvador Perez is set to join them.