I posted Tito's words not because I thought he made sense and it was a good excuse. I posted them cause I thought his comments were absolutely ridiculous.

I didn't look up the defensive stats or else I would have written that article. I just knew he was terrible from watching the games, but all the numbers, both offensively and defensively, back me up. I don't care if we did just sign him to a contract. It was a huge mistake. He should be DFA'd. (Cause no other team would be dumb enough to trade for him)

Perez, on the other hand, is hitting .141/.231/.228 this year and has a career line of .207/.300/.345. Francona is correct in noting that we shouldn’t focus on batting average, but a .300 OBP is terrible and a .231 is unacceptable. Among players with at least 100 PA in 2018, Perez ranks 351st of 355 qualifiers. Unlike average, OBP does matter. wRC+ also matters and Perez has a 26 where the league average is 100. You may say, “but what about defense,” however, so I will tell you about his defense.

With a 0.1 defense score, he is the 78th best catcher in the Majors this year. That means essentially you could take every MLB starter, every MLB bench catcher and the 17 best AAA catchers, then Perez would fit in, although I’m sure there are plenty of better catchers in AAA who don’t qualify because they haven’t hit the big leagues yet. Eric Haase and Mejia are certainly two. As far as base runners, he has been worth -2 runs, the second worst in baseball to Robinson Chirinos.

As far as more familiar metrics, he’s 77 of 84 qualifying catchers in field percentage (an extremely flawed stat for catchers because it includes strike outs as put outs) and has caught just 3 of 22 attempted base stealers while allowing two passed balls and 13 wild pitches. He is bad. He is historically bad in every single facet of the game. A 12 year old who can transfer the ball from his glove to his throwing hand without dropping it would be an improvement at times and this is the man who Francona places all his confidence in over the Indians top hitting prospect. Maybe he’s being hurt by his time on the bench and should be sent to AAA where he can play every day. Some guy named Terry Francona said “that’s not developing” and Perez could use some developing right now.

Let's have the "expert" fans make all the decisions. Look at all the stats they have to back it up.

Fortunately, there are competent people running the Indians.

Bitch all you want.

Won't make a difference.

The contract talk got me curious. So actually his deal was signed BEFORE 2017 season and is not exactly big money:

$500,000 signing bonus

2017 salary: $550,000

2018 salary: $1.5 million

2019 salary: $2.5 million

2020 salary: $3.5 million

2021 option: $5.5 million

2022 option: $7 million

Buyout of option year: $450,000

seagull wrote:Let's have the "expert" fans make all the decisions. Look at all the stats they have to back it up.

Fortunately, there are competent people running the Indians.

Bitch all you want.

Won't make a difference.

In general I do agree with HB on this one although obviously I agree with seagull too - it won't make any difference.

The one caviat I do have is (in a perfect world) I would like to know exactly how each pitcher feels about throwing to Perez. Honest answers.

Because, just as an example, if Bauer swears by him then duh I'd have to take that into heavy consideration. We all know catching is the one position where so much can't be measured between pitcher and catcher. Ask Jon Lester.

One more thing - I did some research and Roberto Perez actually has 3 options remaining - surprisingly. So why not option him to Columbus to play every day and try to get some kind of hitting going (doesn't have to be Posey) and then of course call up Mejia to get some regular time?

Not outrageous but counting buy out we’d be looking at around 7 mill to cut him. That’s the kind of stuff NY and Boston does but not us. But sometimes you have to eat a mistake, like Boston did with Hanley Ramirez earlier this season.

Hillbilly wrote:Not outrageous but counting buy out we’d be looking at around 7 mill to cut him. That’s the kind of stuff NY and Boston does but not us. But sometimes you have to eat a mistake, like Boston did with Hanley Ramirez earlier this season.

Well think back a few seasons and we did do a swap where we traded a crap contract for getting one back (at a different position). So that can happen.

Seagull, well let’s just shut down this f’n forum then. No sense talking about anything. Just sit back and see what the experts do.

The same experts that haven’t won a World Series since 1948.

My preferred option would be to send Perez down for say a month - he has 3 options left. Give Mejia the extended tryout. Go from there.

Great point, TFIR. Totally forgot he has options left. Which gives us more. Perfect.

Maybe a dumb thought but maybe they plan on trading him and don’t want fans to get attached. I really don’t see why else you’d keep Perez over him at this point. If he doesn’t get traded we might just see him August 1st.

This is not about money. Right now, Francona values Perez's handling of the pitchers more then Mejias hitting. At the same time I wonder if Mejia is still having problems with English.

Hillbilly wrote:Maybe a dumb thought but maybe they plan on trading him and don’t want fans to get attached. I really don’t see why else you’d keep Perez over him at this point. If he doesn’t get traded we might just see him August 1st.

(and i agree with rusty)

That was the first thing I thought of HB. Seriously the bottom line is he has more value to this organization as a trading chip (especially now he is red hot) then as any kind of immediate help for this team. We can disagree on his immediate value but that's how the team sees it.

The good news is we both know how highly rated he is so he could really fetch quite a haul in a deal. Realistically we are still in a window where our team is loaded so dealing him may be the way to go.

Remember - they will not trade for a temporary piece - at least not with Mejia. Andrew Miller trade is totally the template for how this team thinks. If you trade a top prospect, someone must come back with controllable years and young enough to make them meaningful.

One more thing - even if he isn't trade we KNOW DAMN WELL he is heavily being discussed by opposing teams coming to the Indians with proposals.

Hillbilly wrote:Seagull, well let’s just shut down this f’n forum then. No sense talking about anything. Just sit back and see what the experts do.

The same experts that haven’t won a World Series since 1948.

Much better since they kicked Shapiro upstairs.

as I read through the list of guys the Indians shoved around the field, I think they get credit in one case: Tony Wohlters has developed into a decent part time catcher for the Rockies. Of course we re-positioned him and then let him get away in Rule 5.

We've made a number of questionable calls on roster-filing and have lost Hector Rondon and T.J. McFarland in Rule 5 and both are having solid bullpen careers. We'll see how Santander develops but that could be another big loss for a team thin in outfielders.

I don't notice the Indians on this list:

Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported the Los Angeles Dodgers are viewed as the favorite to land Machado in a blockbuster trade. The Arizona Diamondbacks, St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers are among the other contenders.The New York Yankees are expected to make a strong push to sign him in free agency during the winter, with the Philadelphia Phillies providing competition, per Nightengale. In a Machado trade, Baltimore will likely look to significantly restock a prospect group that was ranked 24th by MiLB.com before the season.