2024 Season in Review: Salvador Perez continues to defy Father Time

Salvy is still a productive catcher at his age, but how?

Salvador Perez continues to confound any kind of projection or model by simply mashing anything he sees, no matter what his age. Hitters with his lack of plate discipline aren’t supposed to have long-term sustainable success. Catchers aren’t supposed to continue to be productive in their later years. Salvador Perez scoffs at any attempts to put him in a conventional box.

Any notions of Salvador Perez’s offensive demise were premature. He rebounded from a disappointing 92 OPS+ last year to post a 119 this year, his best season since he led the league with 48 home runs at age 31 in 2021. His wRC+ of 115 was fourth among all catchers with at least 400 plate appearances and his 3.2 fWAR was fifth among all backstops.

They say an old dog can’t learn new tricks, but Salvy’s game has evolved this year. With age has come a newfound patience at the plate. Salvy walked 44 times, a career-high by a large margin and his .330 on-base percentage was his best ever in a full season. But if you think Salvy has stopped swinging at everything, you would be mistaken. He was fifth among qualified hitters in swing rate and still in the bottom 1 percent in chase rate. Only two hitters swung at more pitchers outside the strike zone. The reason he’s drawing more walks is because pitchers won’t throw anything in the zone - nobody saw more pitches out of the strike zone than Salvy.

Salv’ys defense also improved this year. Long known as an infamously bad pitch-framer, he worked at it diligently with coach Paul Hoover and became average in 2024. He pitch-blocking is in the bottom half of the league, but not awful. But his arm has declined. Three times he has led the league in catching would-be base-stealers, but over the past two years he has nabbed just 18 percent of attempts. New rules have made it harder for him, but even compared to the rest of the league, his numbers are down.

That also explains why the Royals are transitioning Salvy to other positions - Freddy Fermin has become a better defender overall - he was third among catchers in Defensive Runs saved at +16 while Salvy was -5.

The question is whether Salvy’s bat can continue to be productive enough to justify putting him at a power position like first base or DH. How unprecedented is it to see a catcher put up these kind of numbers at this age? I took a look at the best seasons by a catcher in the expansion era (post-1960) in his age-34 season or later. Salvy is among the best at defying Father Time.

What’s interesting is that all of those other catchers were almost exclusively still catching. Salvy, on the other hand, is spending a lot more time at first base and DH these days to increase his career longevity. How did these other catchers age?

• Jorge Posada was a productive catcher until his age-40 season, his last one, when he was exclusively a DH.
• Elston Howard’s performance dropped significantly after 1964, but he stayed in the league through age 39, but was replacement-level or worse his last two seasons.
• Carlton Fisk was a freak of nature who holds the record for most games caught. He was a productive hitter through age 43, and played until age 45. He could probably suit up today if asked.
• Parrish would also drop off, and 1991 was his last season as a starter.
• Pierzynski had another solid year, fell off a cliff in 2014, but bounced back with a solid season in 2015 before an awful final season in 2016.
• Steinbach had a very weird outlier power season in 1996, then fell back to being a below-average hitting but productive catcher for three more years.

Normal aging curves suggest Salvy will start declining, but there are outliers like these players that defy traditional models. Salvy has always taken an unorthodox approach, but it has worked for him.