If this were 20 years ago, this review would be simple. Thirty homeruns and over a hundred RBIs? That’s an A; thanks for reading.
But, well, it’s not 20 years ago, so we can – and should – dig into things
a little bit deeper.
First, let’s check the WAR numbers. WAR isn’t the be-all, end-all of stats, but it’s always a good starting place. Baseball Reference has him at… 0.6 bWAR. OK, let’s check FanGraphs. They’ve got him at 0.5 fWAR. Often, these numbers disagree, sometimes by quite a bit, but both systems see him as barely above replacement level in 2025. Digging even deeper, Salvy had 1.3 fWAR in July, which means he had -0.8 fWAR across the remaining months of the season. If you check the offensive numbers, that was basically the only month he was an above-average MLB hitter; he did hit about league average in June and September, but was awful the other three months.
Baseball Reference separates their numbers into Offense and Defense. By that, we can see he had a 1.6 oWAR, meaning he was almost worth a starting player just by his offense, but his defense is was considered very bad with a -1 dWAR. FanGraphs also says his defensive numbers were terrible. He did throw out 14 of 18 would-be base stealers, but after drastically improving his framing in 2024, it seems to have gone right back into the toilet in 2025.
So, there’s some bad news here, but also some good news. Sal’s poor defense appears to have prevented him from doing more to contribute to wins, and perhaps brought down his season grade. But going forward, there’s still a lot of reason to think he can hit – at least sometimes – and his defense should be less important than ever with Carter Jensen having a huge September and seeming to set himself up to play lots of catcher in 2026. Additionally, framing – a big part of what was holding Sal back – won’t completely go away, but it should see its importance diminished to some degree by the introduction of the ABS to MLB. If he’s catching less in 2026, he might also be able to better block balls. He made a reputation for himself early in his career for blocking almost everything, but that has gradually diminished as he’s aged, culminating in finishing tied for fourth-worst in MLB at Good Fielding Runs Saved runs above average on FanGraphs. (That’s the only version of a pitch blocking stat I could find that was separated out from the others.) If he caught less, you’d hope he’d be able to use the extra energy to block more balls even as he continues to age.
The tl;dr of it all is this. Salvy isn’t to blame for the Royals missing the playoffs in 2025, but he didn’t do as much to contribute to a playoff run as he did with his tremendous 2024. If the Royals hope to return to the playoffs again in 2026, they’re probably going to need to play him less and bat him lower in the order, where his somewhat inconsistent numbers are less likely to hurt them and more likely to provide surprise bursts of offense.
For all of those reasons, Salvador Perez gets a C+ from me for 2025 with the hope that a little less-is-more in 2026 will cause it to rise once again. It was absolutely super cool to see him hit his 300th home run and drive in his 1000th RBI as a Royal in 2025, though. By the way, those numbers make him only the second primary-position-catcher to reach both 300 home runs and 1000 RBIs all with the same team. Hall of Famer Johnny Bench did it with the Reds, first.
If he plays two more years, as is widely expected to be a minimum for the baseball-loving Venezuelan, he should have an opportunity to tie Bench and Mike Piazza at first with 11 seasons of 20+ home runs. If he managed that feat, there’s a very good chance he could move all the way from eighth all-time among primary position catchers to fifth in total home runs. If he averaged 30, he’d be able to pass Yogi Berra for fourth.
Looking ahead, if he stays healthy, he should be able to set the Royals’ career record for home runs in 2026. He sits only 14 behind George Brett, but has hit more than 20 in each of his last five seasons. So that will be something I imagine most Royals fans will be paying close attention to for a good chunk of the year.
