Salvy is fun and awesome ... but probably destined to end his career in Lance Parrish territory, not in the HOF. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. He'll probably set the post-career record for most hand shakes and fan photos at KC games.
What's crazy is that I'm surprised Brett had that many home runs haha. Always just think of him rippin' singles, doubles, triples for suuure, but just not over the fence all that often. More like a Wade Boggs kind of career line. Boy, did I recall that incorrectly.
If Yankee Stadium version 2 didn't have the upper deck, Brett's homer off Goose in 1980 may have landed in Hoboken. It was a monster blast.
Brett only once hit 30 in a season, but if you play a LONG time and hit about 20 a year, it adds up. Like a less durable Al Kaline perhaps. Or for younger folks, maybe Andrew McCutchen instead.
Salvy's a first-ballot hall of famer based on "integrity, sportsmanship, character, and team contributions." The guy walked from Venezuela to Colombia during the pandemic to deliver relief supplies.
I love that Salvy's been able to stay with one team his whole career. If he'd bounced around he'd be liked but not loved in multiple cities, like a Tony Pena or Benito Santiago or something. Now he gets to be a KC near-legend for life.
I love Salvy as a player and as a person. He has brought so much joy and energy over the years. Being a Royals fan would be much less fun without him.
However . . . and I take no pleasure in saying this . . . he is not a HOF player.
The average MLB on base percentage is around .320. Salvy's lifetime OBP is .299
The average MLB on base + slugging is around .720. Salvy's lifetime OBP+slugging is .751
In other words, his OBP is significantly below average, while among all players who have ever played MLB his OBP+slugging is tied for . . . 978th place.
Those are not Hall of Fame numbers.
To put it another way:
Salvy's lifetime WAR is 35.2
That compares with these non-Hall of Fame catchers
I somewhat agree about the WAR thing, but I don't think this should necessarily be the only thing considered. Yes, it is something, but certainly not the only thing and certainly not for catchers. Before recent years, the standards were more about how we felt about the player during his career, and it was not all this comparison shopping thing going on. It wasn't all just JAWS and WAR. You can use the same standards the other way to stump for people that shouldn't be in the hall to actually be in using those elected. (To use Royals examples, Quisenberry is nearly identical to Sutter, Frank White very similar to Mazeroski, Amos Otis and Willie Wilson had better careers than Dave Parker. Saying these true things doesn't mean they should be in. )
I actually believe some of the list above should be in the Hall, so saying they are not is not an argument. I feel that some players who are in should not be as well.
I don't know that he will make it. I do think it is a borderline thing at best, but I don't think the hall of fame is only about WAR.
Salvy has 16 years with one team. That means something. Salvy has won the Gehrig, Clemente, and Musial awards. Salvy was considered to be one of the best catchers of his time for much of his career. He is a 9 time all star, a 5 time silver slugger, a 5 time gold glove winner, and a World Series MVP. He has a home run and RBI title and in 2021 became the only catcher ever to be tops in both categories for the season. He was a popular, well known player, considered to be among the best at a national level. He loves the game and lights up every room he is in, and is loved by other players and the media.
Sorry, these things all matter. It isn't just looking at WAR and giving a thumbs up or thumbs down. It will be interesting.
We will have to disagree. If Bill Freehan, Thurman Munson and Gene Tenace are not in the HOF, I believe it would be absurd for Salvy to be inducted. To put it another way, if a player with Salvy's level of production should be in the HOF there are at least another 200 players who should be inducted. Which would be nuts.
Sorry, I disagree with this argument on both sides. Whether or not a past player is in is not relevant. Not in making a case whether a player should be in, or should be out.
Every case is different. I will say I have thought that Munson should have been in decades ago. I think Freehan has a pretty clear case and was unlucky to play in the golden catcher era, and would probably be in other than that timing. Gene Tenace only played catcher for parts of 57.5% of his games. Despite Salvy playing at first and DH now towards the end, his number is 91.8%. They are just not the same category anyway. Salvy is an all time primary catcher. Tenace kind of has to kind of be lumped in more for offense.
If you are talking about players better than a player not being in, you are talking about a tiny Hall. If you are making a case for players that are in that are worse than a player you want to be in already being there, (inferring that because they are in, your player should be as well) you are talking about a hall exponentially larger than what it is.
Other players and eras just don't have that relevance. The voters (and the committees) of the past shouldn't have an affect on the voting of a recently retired star.
Yeah, I wasn't sure what his actual numbers looked like and went into it looking to defend his candidacy. Alas, I don't really see an argument for him at all. He'll get votes, for sure, but I can't imagine he gets close with the writers. His black ink, gray ink, and JAWS are not close to the standard, though his HOF monitor number puts him slightly above the "likely Hall of Famer" threshold.
Agree that on talent and achievement alone, Salvy is not a HOFer, but if you keep Roger Clemens out, if you keep Barry Bonds out, if you keep all of these guys out for "cheating" you've admitted that it's more than just talent and achievement, it is also about character. if you keep these guys out for character flaws, you should put Salvy in for his exceptional character, his joyous nature, reward him for his infection smile. Incentivize goodness in the same way you disincentivize badness.
Um, no. Players who otherwise would deserve Hall of Fame status based on their on-field performance can quite legitimately be excluded for repeatedly violating the clear rules of the game on taking performance enhancing drugs. Players whose statistics do not earn Hall of Fame status should not get voted into the Hall via giving them subjective bonus points based on their philanthropic work or for having a winning personality.
As far as I know, MLB did not have any rules prohibiting the use of PEDs during Clemens or Bonds' careers. If you want to put them in and leave Salvy out, I'm fine with it but you shouldn't have it both ways, it's either about the stats or it's not.
Also, it was against the law to use anabolic steroids, testosterone and other PEDs for non-medical purposes. Why does MLB even need “rules” for things that are already against the law?
Baseball rules are supposed to be for things like banging trash cans, not arson.
Nope. They did not. You are accepting a self-interested assertion by Bud Selig that has proven to be false. They sorta, kinda did so for minor league players and off field personnel. But that was never - not once - enforced.
Because of how they botched the Pittsburgh drug cases and the Steve Howe mess and all the other cocaine issues of the late 70s to mid 80s, any such effort could only have been done through a negotiated agreement with the Union. And they never even presented it in bargaining until the silly Congressional hearings almost a decade later.
Your statement is incorrect. In 1991 Commissioner Fay Vincent sent a policy memo to all major league teams and the players' union explicitly adding anabolic steroids to baseball's prohibited list of illegal drugs and controlled substances.
As far back as 2021, when I covered the White Sox, Chicago manager Tony LaRussa more than once referred to Perez as a future Hall of Famer. I remember thinking, "Salvy is really good....but Hall of Famer? We'll see." Given his production these last five years, I think there's a very good chance LaRussa called it--and a lot earlier than others.
Salvy is a Hall of Famer. You can argue about his WAR and a million other things, I'm sure, but his hardware is super impressive - 9x AS, 5x silver slugger and gold glover and WS MVP. 48 HR as a primary catcher which set a record. He's a leader and team captain including for his home country and WBC champs Venezuela. He totally deserves it.
I am on the fence with Salvy and the HoF, but I will say the fact that any player is an all star (almost no matter how many seasons) is now meaningless. Requiring a player from every team, then counting a player as an All Star after 13 guys opt out of the game has me ignoring that stat.
Those first few accolades say more about the state of the Catcher position in the Al then they do Salvy. Good player, great human and if they put him in the HoF they should just close the thing down.
As a Mariners fan there was a long period of time that one Royal you did not want to see at bat with the game on the line was Salvy. If they ever give me a HOF ballot to fill out, he's in.
I don't fully understand why we put so much emphasis on "most" HRs, or doubles or triples, or several other offensive measures BY POSITION, especially when making a HoF argument. So many of these measures depend upon number of lifetime AB (i.e., longevity), the stadiums in which the player batted, and the opposing pitchers they faced. I understand why a particular franchise might want to honor the individual with the most ______ in team history, but IMHO looking at offense position-by-position is not only less important but less interesting. I am pretty sure that if Jeff Kent had played any position other than 2B, he likely would not have garenered a HoF spot. And as alifelong Met fan, I am still irate that Mike Piazza - a mediocre defensive catcher at best - refused to move to 1B with the Mets because he wanted to set the HR records for catchers.
Like John, I agree and disagree. But I'll give a different answer for why we talk about most <whatever> by position or for a team. It's fun.
We all have heard the more significant numbers and debated them.
But these people are doing really awesome things and one way of highlighting things is through numbers. So, we find fun ways to talk about numbers that tell a different, perhaps less "important" story. Most HRs by a Royal? Says more about the history of the Royals than about George Brett or Salvy Perez. Hitting streaks? Even more meaningless; you'd help the team more with a better wRC+ over 56 games than a hitting streak (this is a Yankee fan saying that!). A cycle? Please. The triple was probably an error that wasn't identified as one. The guy who hit a couple of home runs the day before had a better day (maybe).
But it's fun. We get to talk about how great a player Salvy is for a minute without having to compare his WAR to Posada or Freehan. We get to talk about how much he's meant to a franchise by highlighting one number that reminds us that he hit all of those home runs for one appreciative bunch of fans.
Now, if somebody says that a player should be in the HOF because he had the most sacrifice flies in the 2010s, well that may be less fun. ;-)
Agree and disagree. In my mind the position matters. That's probably why the baseball writers, nearly all of whom never played at the MLB level, gave Judge the MVP last yrear and the players voted for Cal Raleigh. The physical and mental demands for the non-catchers also vary but none approach the catchers. Time also is a factor. SS used to be the position for featherweights and then Ernie Banks and later Cal Ripken and A-Rod changed the thinking about the position. Likewise, 2B used to feature great hitters with modest to great power. Think Napoleon LaJoie and Rogers Hornsby. One last thought about catchers. They are the ones who wear the "tools of ignorance", a nod to the notion that a player would have to crazy tp put on the gear and endure the pounding.
Salvy has been a tremendous representative of the Royals and a gift to Kansas City in both good times and bad over the past 15 years. Viva, Salvador Perez!
Salvy is fun and awesome ... but probably destined to end his career in Lance Parrish territory, not in the HOF. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. He'll probably set the post-career record for most hand shakes and fan photos at KC games.
What's crazy is that I'm surprised Brett had that many home runs haha. Always just think of him rippin' singles, doubles, triples for suuure, but just not over the fence all that often. More like a Wade Boggs kind of career line. Boy, did I recall that incorrectly.
Although George Brett was not a prototypical one-dimensional masher, he did hit some memorable ones. As a Yankee fan I well remember these:
* 1976 ALCS Game 5 - 3 run homer in 8th inning to tie it at 6-6 (the Chambliss game).
* 1978 ALCS Game 3 - 3 solo homers off of Catfish Hunter (alas also in a losing effort).
* 1980 ALCS Game 3 - 3 run homer in 8th inning off of Gossage, giving the Royals the lead for good (and clinching the series).
I'm sure there were a few others....
If Yankee Stadium version 2 didn't have the upper deck, Brett's homer off Goose in 1980 may have landed in Hoboken. It was a monster blast.
Brett only once hit 30 in a season, but if you play a LONG time and hit about 20 a year, it adds up. Like a less durable Al Kaline perhaps. Or for younger folks, maybe Andrew McCutchen instead.
Salvy's a first-ballot hall of famer based on "integrity, sportsmanship, character, and team contributions." The guy walked from Venezuela to Colombia during the pandemic to deliver relief supplies.
Joe and Mike were onto something! https://deadline.com/2026/07/netflix-luke-littler-live-darts-event-october-30-1237004269/
I love that Salvy's been able to stay with one team his whole career. If he'd bounced around he'd be liked but not loved in multiple cities, like a Tony Pena or Benito Santiago or something. Now he gets to be a KC near-legend for life.
Near? 😃
I love Salvy as a player and as a person. He has brought so much joy and energy over the years. Being a Royals fan would be much less fun without him.
However . . . and I take no pleasure in saying this . . . he is not a HOF player.
The average MLB on base percentage is around .320. Salvy's lifetime OBP is .299
The average MLB on base + slugging is around .720. Salvy's lifetime OBP+slugging is .751
In other words, his OBP is significantly below average, while among all players who have ever played MLB his OBP+slugging is tied for . . . 978th place.
Those are not Hall of Fame numbers.
To put it another way:
Salvy's lifetime WAR is 35.2
That compares with these non-Hall of Fame catchers
Lance Parrish 39.5 WAR
Jim Sundberg 40.5 WAR
Bill Freehan 44.7 WAR
Thurman Munson 46.0 WAR
Gene Tenace 46.8 WAR
I somewhat agree about the WAR thing, but I don't think this should necessarily be the only thing considered. Yes, it is something, but certainly not the only thing and certainly not for catchers. Before recent years, the standards were more about how we felt about the player during his career, and it was not all this comparison shopping thing going on. It wasn't all just JAWS and WAR. You can use the same standards the other way to stump for people that shouldn't be in the hall to actually be in using those elected. (To use Royals examples, Quisenberry is nearly identical to Sutter, Frank White very similar to Mazeroski, Amos Otis and Willie Wilson had better careers than Dave Parker. Saying these true things doesn't mean they should be in. )
I actually believe some of the list above should be in the Hall, so saying they are not is not an argument. I feel that some players who are in should not be as well.
I don't know that he will make it. I do think it is a borderline thing at best, but I don't think the hall of fame is only about WAR.
Salvy has 16 years with one team. That means something. Salvy has won the Gehrig, Clemente, and Musial awards. Salvy was considered to be one of the best catchers of his time for much of his career. He is a 9 time all star, a 5 time silver slugger, a 5 time gold glove winner, and a World Series MVP. He has a home run and RBI title and in 2021 became the only catcher ever to be tops in both categories for the season. He was a popular, well known player, considered to be among the best at a national level. He loves the game and lights up every room he is in, and is loved by other players and the media.
Sorry, these things all matter. It isn't just looking at WAR and giving a thumbs up or thumbs down. It will be interesting.
Amen! Well said…
We will have to disagree. If Bill Freehan, Thurman Munson and Gene Tenace are not in the HOF, I believe it would be absurd for Salvy to be inducted. To put it another way, if a player with Salvy's level of production should be in the HOF there are at least another 200 players who should be inducted. Which would be nuts.
Sorry, I disagree with this argument on both sides. Whether or not a past player is in is not relevant. Not in making a case whether a player should be in, or should be out.
Every case is different. I will say I have thought that Munson should have been in decades ago. I think Freehan has a pretty clear case and was unlucky to play in the golden catcher era, and would probably be in other than that timing. Gene Tenace only played catcher for parts of 57.5% of his games. Despite Salvy playing at first and DH now towards the end, his number is 91.8%. They are just not the same category anyway. Salvy is an all time primary catcher. Tenace kind of has to kind of be lumped in more for offense.
If you are talking about players better than a player not being in, you are talking about a tiny Hall. If you are making a case for players that are in that are worse than a player you want to be in already being there, (inferring that because they are in, your player should be as well) you are talking about a hall exponentially larger than what it is.
Other players and eras just don't have that relevance. The voters (and the committees) of the past shouldn't have an affect on the voting of a recently retired star.
Yeah, I wasn't sure what his actual numbers looked like and went into it looking to defend his candidacy. Alas, I don't really see an argument for him at all. He'll get votes, for sure, but I can't imagine he gets close with the writers. His black ink, gray ink, and JAWS are not close to the standard, though his HOF monitor number puts him slightly above the "likely Hall of Famer" threshold.
Agree that on talent and achievement alone, Salvy is not a HOFer, but if you keep Roger Clemens out, if you keep Barry Bonds out, if you keep all of these guys out for "cheating" you've admitted that it's more than just talent and achievement, it is also about character. if you keep these guys out for character flaws, you should put Salvy in for his exceptional character, his joyous nature, reward him for his infection smile. Incentivize goodness in the same way you disincentivize badness.
Um, no. Players who otherwise would deserve Hall of Fame status based on their on-field performance can quite legitimately be excluded for repeatedly violating the clear rules of the game on taking performance enhancing drugs. Players whose statistics do not earn Hall of Fame status should not get voted into the Hall via giving them subjective bonus points based on their philanthropic work or for having a winning personality.
As far as I know, MLB did not have any rules prohibiting the use of PEDs during Clemens or Bonds' careers. If you want to put them in and leave Salvy out, I'm fine with it but you shouldn't have it both ways, it's either about the stats or it's not.
Also, it was against the law to use anabolic steroids, testosterone and other PEDs for non-medical purposes. Why does MLB even need “rules” for things that are already against the law?
Baseball rules are supposed to be for things like banging trash cans, not arson.
MLB banned performance enhancing steroids in 1991.
Nope. They did not. You are accepting a self-interested assertion by Bud Selig that has proven to be false. They sorta, kinda did so for minor league players and off field personnel. But that was never - not once - enforced.
Because of how they botched the Pittsburgh drug cases and the Steve Howe mess and all the other cocaine issues of the late 70s to mid 80s, any such effort could only have been done through a negotiated agreement with the Union. And they never even presented it in bargaining until the silly Congressional hearings almost a decade later.
Your statement is incorrect. In 1991 Commissioner Fay Vincent sent a policy memo to all major league teams and the players' union explicitly adding anabolic steroids to baseball's prohibited list of illegal drugs and controlled substances.
As far back as 2021, when I covered the White Sox, Chicago manager Tony LaRussa more than once referred to Perez as a future Hall of Famer. I remember thinking, "Salvy is really good....but Hall of Famer? We'll see." Given his production these last five years, I think there's a very good chance LaRussa called it--and a lot earlier than others.
Salvy is a Hall of Famer. You can argue about his WAR and a million other things, I'm sure, but his hardware is super impressive - 9x AS, 5x silver slugger and gold glover and WS MVP. 48 HR as a primary catcher which set a record. He's a leader and team captain including for his home country and WBC champs Venezuela. He totally deserves it.
I am on the fence with Salvy and the HoF, but I will say the fact that any player is an all star (almost no matter how many seasons) is now meaningless. Requiring a player from every team, then counting a player as an All Star after 13 guys opt out of the game has me ignoring that stat.
Those first few accolades say more about the state of the Catcher position in the Al then they do Salvy. Good player, great human and if they put him in the HoF they should just close the thing down.
As a Mariners fan there was a long period of time that one Royal you did not want to see at bat with the game on the line was Salvy. If they ever give me a HOF ballot to fill out, he's in.
Yeah, I agree. Having him up there in the 2014 world series as the winning run scared me. Grateful that he made the last out.
Salvy did okay in the Molina zone. HOF catchers.
Above all, and as previously noted, nobody ever had or has more fun doing anything than Salvy does playing baseball.
Salvy represents everything admirable about baseball and sports more broadly. So happy for him.
I don't fully understand why we put so much emphasis on "most" HRs, or doubles or triples, or several other offensive measures BY POSITION, especially when making a HoF argument. So many of these measures depend upon number of lifetime AB (i.e., longevity), the stadiums in which the player batted, and the opposing pitchers they faced. I understand why a particular franchise might want to honor the individual with the most ______ in team history, but IMHO looking at offense position-by-position is not only less important but less interesting. I am pretty sure that if Jeff Kent had played any position other than 2B, he likely would not have garenered a HoF spot. And as alifelong Met fan, I am still irate that Mike Piazza - a mediocre defensive catcher at best - refused to move to 1B with the Mets because he wanted to set the HR records for catchers.
Like John, I agree and disagree. But I'll give a different answer for why we talk about most <whatever> by position or for a team. It's fun.
We all have heard the more significant numbers and debated them.
But these people are doing really awesome things and one way of highlighting things is through numbers. So, we find fun ways to talk about numbers that tell a different, perhaps less "important" story. Most HRs by a Royal? Says more about the history of the Royals than about George Brett or Salvy Perez. Hitting streaks? Even more meaningless; you'd help the team more with a better wRC+ over 56 games than a hitting streak (this is a Yankee fan saying that!). A cycle? Please. The triple was probably an error that wasn't identified as one. The guy who hit a couple of home runs the day before had a better day (maybe).
But it's fun. We get to talk about how great a player Salvy is for a minute without having to compare his WAR to Posada or Freehan. We get to talk about how much he's meant to a franchise by highlighting one number that reminds us that he hit all of those home runs for one appreciative bunch of fans.
Now, if somebody says that a player should be in the HOF because he had the most sacrifice flies in the 2010s, well that may be less fun. ;-)
Agree and disagree. In my mind the position matters. That's probably why the baseball writers, nearly all of whom never played at the MLB level, gave Judge the MVP last yrear and the players voted for Cal Raleigh. The physical and mental demands for the non-catchers also vary but none approach the catchers. Time also is a factor. SS used to be the position for featherweights and then Ernie Banks and later Cal Ripken and A-Rod changed the thinking about the position. Likewise, 2B used to feature great hitters with modest to great power. Think Napoleon LaJoie and Rogers Hornsby. One last thought about catchers. They are the ones who wear the "tools of ignorance", a nod to the notion that a player would have to crazy tp put on the gear and endure the pounding.
Salvy has been a tremendous representative of the Royals and a gift to Kansas City in both good times and bad over the past 15 years. Viva, Salvador Perez!