Salvador Perez is having a unicorn season

It’s only May, but Salvy is having a late career renaissance

The Royals offense is weird. Since May 1, the Royals are sixth in the American League in runs scored. But nobody is really hitting. Vinnie Pasquantino has been hot, while Bobby Witt Jr and Salvador Perez have been hitting well if not unspectacularly. Aside from them, though, the other Kansas City starters have a combined 68 wRC+.

In May, Royals hitters have an 88 RC+. Someone could say their success scoring runs is unsustainable, and they’re probably right. There have been too many games where Kansas City’s offense is bailed out by one well-timed hit or inning (see: two nights ago). Perhaps the best personification of this weirdness is Salvador Perez, Kansas City’s long-faithful catcher and now captain.

Salvy scored the go-ahead run on Nelson Velazquez’s three-run homer, taking first base on his fourth intentional walk of the season. It was his 13th walk overall. Last season, Salvador Perez didn’t draw his 13th walk until July 29th. When the Royals won the World Series in 2015, Salvy needed all 142 games to draw exactly 13 walks. He is walking at a rate that he has never been remotely close to in the past and is still swinging at everything. He is having a unicorn season in three different distinct ways.

Unicorn #1: Walking Without Plate Discipline

It’s impossible to start a Salvador Perez unicorn post without talking about Salvy’s 7.6% walk rate. His career high before 2024 was 4.2%. As I write this, his on-base percentage rests at .390, nearly 60 points higher than his career high in a full season. His batting average is .323, a number that will surely come down, but that is also significantly higher than his .268 career average.

We just don’t see 34-year-olds make these leaps, especially not 34-year-olds with a long and documented history of being allergic to getting on base. Salvy’s offensive value has always come with his power and even his 48-homer season produced just a 125 wRC+ and .859 OPS thanks to a measly .316 OBP.

So what has changed? Well, not a lot when it comes to plate discipline. I’ve documented this on X.

These numbers had stabilized a bit since, with Salvy sitting in the 2nd and 28th percentile respectively as of May 14, but he jumped back into the 42nd percentile with his two-walk performance that same night.

He is chasing pitches just as much as he always has, but walking far more than in the past. One reason for this is the high percentage of intentional walks. Salvy has four on the season already after being intentionally walked just six times all of last season. He intentionally walked just four times when he hit 48 homers and never topped that number prior to last year.

So around one-third of his walks this season have been intentional. While that is a large number, it was the same last season. Of his walks last year, 31% were intentional, while just 30% of his walks this year are intentional.

The obvious reason is the huge dropoff from the Royals' 2-3-4 hitters to the 5-6-7 hitters. Kansas City is getting a .609 OPS from its #5 hitters and Salvy has primarily hit cleanup.

With that said, he is still walking more than normal. If we only counted his nine true walks, he would be walking 5.3% of the time, a career-high by more than a full percentage point. If he finished the year walking at that rate and came to the plate as many times as he did last year, he would walk 31 times, a career-high.

So yes, intentional walks are skewing the numbers. But he’s still walking more than a guy who swings at half of the pitches he sees out of the zone should.

Unicorn #2: League Average Framing

If you told me that Salvy would be walking at a near-league-average pace, I would bet my next paycheck on that fact being the weirdest thing about his season. But his framing metrics might be the craziest evolution from his this season. As it stands, Salvy has been worth 1.9 defensive runs above average.

In the last three seasons, he’s been worth -12.6, -9.1, and -8.6 respectively. During that -12.6 season, he was one of the best catchers in baseball at preventing runs with his arm and has been below average in that category this year. His framing was just that bad. So what has changed?

He is in the 59th percentile at Framing Runs Above average. Since 2017, he has been in the 1st, 1st, 3rd, 1st, 5th, and 10th percentile across every full season respectively. In other words, one of if not the worst framing catcher in the league.

This year, he has been one of the best, allowing his other wonderful defensive traits to shine while not being held down by his cataclysmically bad framing metrics. He hasn’t been one of the best defensive catchers in baseball like he would have been with this level of framing earlier in his career. Still, he has been good behind the plate, especially in relation to his offensive production.

Unicorn #3: Elite Strikeout Rate With Ultra Elite Power

Salvy has always been a decent bat-to-ball guy. He has generally had league-average chase rates, and at times above average in his earlier years. Those numbers dipped when he became more power-focused, with his worst year coming in his career-best 2021 season that saw him in the 6th percentile.

He has a career 18.6% strikeout percentage, below this year’s 22.4% MLB average. That number is skewed by his early seasons that saw him striking out far less than the league-average hitter. Since 2020, he has been a tick above league average in K% every year, but still roughly league average, something the Royals would take for a guy that can hit 20 to 30 homers a season.

This year has been different, so far. His 15.7% K% is his lowest since 2015, a year where the average hitter struck out 20% of the time, a number that has since increased. We all know Vinnie Pasquantino as the guy with the ridiculous K% for a guy his size and profile. He is tenth in baseball in lowest strikeout rate. But he isn’t hitting for the power Salvy is.

In fact, almost nobody is. As of May 15, there were 53 hitters with K% in the 80th or better percentile this year. There were only two qualified hitters among them with an xSLG% in the 97th or better percentile: Juan Soto and Salvador Perez. Kyle Tucker jumped into the 80th percentile to join them yesterday, but still.

Salvy is striking out at an elite pace and hitting for power at an even more elite pace.

It’s still May, so I think most of us would assume these things will come back to earth. They already have, as Salvy’s OPS in May is just over .750. However, we are far enough into the season to suspect Salvy is having a renaissance year. Even his down month hasn’t been the severe return to earth we have become accustomed to with Salvy.

He is having arguably his best season as a professional this season. And we should enjoy it.