Oliver Perez Dumped From Mets' Rotation

by Charlie Wilmoth on Mar 9, 2011 5:04 PM EST

The Mets have removed Oliver Perez from consideration for a rotation job, and instead will take a look at him as a lefty specialist out of the bullpen. The article notes that Perez was throwing between 84 and 88 MPH in his Spring Training outing yesterday.

I'm not sure exactly what happened to Perez - from his inconsistent mechanics to his mental state, there are probably any number of factors that have contributed to his decline, many of which we can only guess at. (The mechanics are huge, though.) But he's a long way from his amazing 2004 season with the Bucs, when his fastball sat in the mid-90s and his filthy breaking stuff was a devastating contrast. If you had told me then that Perez would go on to be, say, an eight-time All-Star, I wouldn't have blinked an eye. But even in that season, he had 81 walks, and he had games like this one against the Rockies in which he picked up a win despite having seven walks, and this one against the Rangers, where he had 12 strikeouts and four walks in six innings while allowing three homers. The potential was clearly there for him to completely fall apart, and, well, he realized it.

Perez had a couple of seasons in 2007 and 2008 in which he was helpful despite the continuing problems with walks. The $36 million contract the Mets gave him after that looks ridiculous now, but at that time, Perez was 27 and was coming off two straight productive seasons, and his upside was even greater than that. There was, of course, an immense risk of collapse, and that's what happened, as Perez was terrible in 2009 and 2010, culminating with him refusing a minor-league assignment last year. I'm actually surprised they've stuck with him this long.

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O Perez > S Olsen

we should pickup Perez

by bmcferren on Mar 9, 2011 5:34 PM EST reply actions

sometimes i think

people make suggestions like this just to flame!

by BurgherKing on Mar 9, 2011 5:36 PM EST up reply actions

somehow that is a reputation that I have...

I think the Pirates have a strong history of recruiting/supporting Mexican players and we should continue that.

Rincon, F Cordova, E Loiaza, O Perez, F Heredia

LHèrs are at a premium these days and Oliver is certainly a brand of lighting in a bottle.

Maybe we could get a deal on Jose Reyes if we agreed to take on some of the salary of O Perez

Los Diablos Rojos….

by bmcferren on Mar 9, 2011 7:35 PM EST up reply actions

no team needs the current version of Perez

they’d have missed the bus by about 6 years!

by BurgherKing on Mar 9, 2011 11:53 PM EST up reply actions

Perez

He certainly joins the club of playing to get a big contract and then………………

by NastyNate82 on Mar 9, 2011 5:59 PM EST reply actions

Perez’s collapse in 2005 was hard to watch. His 2004 performance alone looked like it would justify the Giles trade, and seeing Perez and Bay performing so well gave me a lot of hope for the future of the team. I really wish he had been able to put it together, even after being traded to the Mets. Perez could have been a fun player to watch for a long time.

by Kidspud on Mar 9, 2011 7:36 PM EST reply actions

I don't think this was a decline, more like 2004 was an incredibly fluke season

As a Met fan I don’t think he was more useful those 2 non-horrible seasons than any random FA pickup would’ve been, and his contract has been ridiculous and indefensible since day 1.
I admit being angry and biased towards him, because I’ve always thought that people put too much stock on 2004, even these last couple of horrendous years some people were still saying “Oh, but he has some great stuff, such a shame” That always bothered me, because, personally I’ve never seen that great stuff, not with the Mets. He just flat out sucks.

by Clemenx00 on Mar 9, 2011 8:47 PM EST reply actions

Flat-out, he had great stuff when he was with the Pirates. There were days when he looked pretty much unhittable.

by Charlie Wilmoth on Mar 9, 2011 10:04 PM EST up reply actions

(At least in 2004. Not so much in ’05.)

by Charlie Wilmoth on Mar 9, 2011 10:04 PM EST up reply actions

Pitched one of the best games I've ever seen.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT200404250.shtml

Shut out the Reds on three hits, one walk, 10 Ks, game score of 84, after a three-hour rain delay to start the game. Because there were only about 2,000 fans still around when the game finally started, the Pirates announced they were giving us all free tickets to another game. I had a couple extras I tried to give away before the game and couldn’t find any takers. Glad I couldn’t, cause I traded in my rain checks PLUS those two and got two more free games out of it.

What a great day.

by bucdaddy on Mar 10, 2011 12:57 AM EST up reply actions

Oops, my bad

Six-hitter.

by bucdaddy on Mar 10, 2011 12:58 AM EST up reply actions

"incredibly fluke season" Or ...

196 innings as a 22-year-old.

by bucdaddy on Mar 10, 2011 12:52 AM EST up reply actions

Steroids?

Anybody? I have no knowledge or inside information, but does the drop in his velocity suggest that perhaps his performance was enhanced in earlier years?

"Who is John Galt?"

by Trogluddite on Mar 9, 2011 9:14 PM EST reply actions

I thought the same thing

back in 2005 when his velocity dropped big time from 2004

by pghkillers on Mar 9, 2011 9:55 PM EST up reply actions

Unlikely.

And not really something that should be thrown around without any evidence.

by Vlad on Mar 9, 2011 10:24 PM EST via mobile up reply actions

have to agree

plenty of pitchers have had fluke career seasons and then regressed or just lost their stuff without any PED involvement. hey, tim alderson’s velocity dropped, he must have been on steroids.

i was disappointed to see dejan retweet somebody’s unfounded accusation. it’s not him saying it, but he’s certainly endorsing it by giving it a wider audience. if he had published it on the PG Plus blog, he would have had to use the title “some jagoff in blawnox thinks oliver perez used steroids.” disappointing.

by johnnycuff on Mar 10, 2011 11:01 AM EST up reply actions

The problem with

posting is that the little vocal and visual clues that differentiate between an off-hand comment and getting in someone’s face are missing.

Asking whether steroids could explain Oliver Perez’s prior success is not an accusation against him. Its a request for information, which is better addressed by an observation about the number of pitchers who have erratic statistical seasons rather than just bluntly dismissing the question and accusing people, without evidence, of making accusations against people without evidence.

I believe that, in the steroid era, there is evidence of players other than home run sluggers using steroids. Both position players just trying to hang on and pitchers seeking to gain an edge against batters (or offset the batters steroid advantage) have been linked to steroids. Therefore, its hardly outside the realm of possiblity that a pitcher was sneaking PEDs and for whatever reason stopped, inducing a sharp drop in velocity. Its not the only explanation and I don’t believe anyone here has claimed that it was.

"Who is John Galt?"

by Trogluddite on Mar 10, 2011 9:34 PM EST up reply actions

Or

196 innings as a 22-year-old.

by bucdaddy on Mar 10, 2011 12:51 AM EST up reply actions

I'm not sure what happened

But he had elite stuff for a while.

I don’t think it was steroids. I think it was a mix of poor mechanics and not being real coachable.

by Bernie6 on Mar 9, 2011 9:55 PM EST reply actions

Or

196 innings as a 22-year-old.

by bucdaddy on Mar 10, 2011 12:50 AM EST up reply actions

Maybe

A just from 125 to 196 is significant.

by Bernie6 on Mar 10, 2011 12:04 PM EST up reply actions

Did we (Pirates

management) do that to him or was that jump while he was a Padre?

Not that I’m accusing Padres management of running their young pitchers into the ground or anything.

"Who is John Galt?"

by Trogluddite on Mar 10, 2011 10:13 PM EST up reply actions

We

hung the 196 on him.

by bucdaddy on Mar 10, 2011 11:37 PM EST up reply actions

If I keep saying this often enough

maybe it will sink in:

Maybe you just shouldn’t load 196 innings on a 22-year-old arm, huh?

And how many times does that have to happen?

by bucdaddy on Mar 9, 2011 11:05 PM EST reply actions 1 recs

I remember saying it at the time...

on the old trib discussion board. Once his innings started creeping up past 150, I raised a red flag but I was roundly shouted down. Management was obviously trying to put as many fannies in the seats as possible, but a 70 inning bump is inexcusable. It really underlines what a clown car management team we had at the time.

What was especially ludicrous was that he pitched the last game of the season…on the road. Now of course, any damage to his arm or shoulder may well have been largely done by then, but why on earth would you take a chance when it was so unnecessary?

The good news is, he pitched 6 shutout innings and won his 12th game. :-(

by mocasdad on Mar 10, 2011 1:21 PM EST up reply actions

Indeed.

A few guys are strong enough to pitch through this kind of abuse for awhile. My poster boy for this is Dontrelle Willis. The Fish got lucky (or maybe somehow knew what they were doing) when they rode that horse as far as they could and then shipped him off one step from the glue factory, but any piece written the last few years that wondered “What happened to Dontrelle?” and didn’t mention the enormous load of innings on him was written by an idiot, and there were lots of idiots.

by bucdaddy on Mar 10, 2011 1:59 PM EST up reply actions