Longtime major league pitcher Oliver Pérez will retire after playing out the 2022 season with the Toros de Tijuana of the Mexican League, the Toros announced (on Twitter) last week. When the 40-year-old does officially step away, it’ll mark the end of a professional career that spanned over two decades.
He began that run in April 1999, signing with the Padres as an amateur free agent out of Mexico. He spent the next few seasons ascending the minor league ladder, reaching the majors before his 21st birthday in 2002. He spent around a year with the Friars before they shipped him alongside Jason Bay to the Pirates for Brian Giles.
Pérez was downright excellent during his first full season with the Bucs. He tossed 196 innings of 2.98 ERA ball in 2004, striking out 29.7% of opponents. That came at a time when the leaguewide strikeout rate was far lower than it is now, and Pérez’s mark trailed only those of Randy Johnson and Johan Santana among 89 qualified starters.
Even at his best, Pérez struggled somewhat to throw strikes. Walks became an increasing problem, and the southpaw had his share of ups and downs over the next few seasons. Pittsburgh traded him to the Mets as part of a package to acquire Xavier Nady at the trade deadline in 2006, and he logged the next four and a half seasons in Queens. Pérez had a pair of productive seasons to start his Mets tenure, combining for a 3.91 ERA across 371 frames between 2007-08. Yet his walk and home run rates spiked to untenable levels the following couple seasons, and the Mets moved him to the bullpen midway through the 2010 campaign.
After spending 2011 as a starter in the Nationals’ system but failing to return to the majors, he moved to the bullpen full-time. That proved to be a career turning point for Pérez. He’d enjoy a decade-long second act as a reliever, bouncing between a handful of teams but generally thriving in a situational role. Working in shorter stints, Pérez proved more successful than he’d been as a starter with regards to throwing strikes. He posted an ERA below 4.00 in all three seasons from 2012-14 while playing for the Mariners and Diamondbacks. His ERA spiked over the next three seasons, but Pérez consistently posted strong peripherals in relief during stints with the Astros and Nationals.
After minor league deals with the Reds and Yankees didn’t result in a big league opportunity, Pérez looked as if he might be nearing the end of his career in 2018. He caught on with the Indians midseason, though, and he proved an invaluable weapon for skipper Terry Francona down the stretch. The veteran specialist impressively made 50 appearances from June 2 onward, working to a 1.39 ERA with a 35.8% strikeout rate and a 5.8% walk percentage.
That offseason, he returned to Cleveland on a one-year guarantee with a vesting option for 2020. He triggered that provision by making 67 appearances (with a 3.98 ERA) in 2019. Pérez continued to get solid results during the shortened season, but his peripherals went in the wrong direction. He re-upped with Cleveland on a minor league deal last winter. While he made the roster out of Spring Training, the Indians designated him for assignment in late April. Pérez latched on with the Toros in May. After pitching to a 2.63 ERA in 24 outings with the Mexican League club, he’ll return for another season in Tijuana to finish out his career.
Pérez had a winding, remarkable run during his time in the majors. He appeared in 19 of the 20 MLB seasons between 2002-21, suiting up with eight different clubs at the big league level. While he never established himself as a consistently productive rotation member over multiple years, Pérez posted top-of-the-rotation numbers over a full season in 2004 and intermittently looked like a solid starter at other points. Yet upon reinventing himself as a reliever, he proved a reliably effective option for various clubs. From 2012 onwards, Pérez posted a 3.42 ERA over 490 relief outings. He was especially challenging for same-handed opponents, holding lefty batters to a cumulative .229/.300/.337 slash in that time.
Overall, Pérez posted a 4.34 ERA in 1,461 2/3 big league innings. He punched out 1,545 batters, was credited with 73 wins and held 105 leads in a set-up capacity. According to Baseball Reference, Pérez earned a bit under $53MM in salary over the course of his lengthy big league career. MLBTR congratulates him on his accomplishments and wishes him all the best in his upcoming season with the Toros and his post-playing days.
Props to Ollie. The man’s career rose from the dead more often than Lazarus.
Congratulations to him…I should’ve been a lefty.
Scott Boras: “As far as left handed pitchers go, Oliver Perez is better than Ted Lilly, Johan Santana, Cole Hamels and CC Sabathia. Durable Big Game Ollie is in the same class as Randy Johnson and Sandy Koufax and should be paid as such.”
He was drunk when he said something that stupid.
He wasn’t drunk. He was just doing his normal routine when trying to get a franchise to drastically overpay for one of his players. The Mets ended up paying a ton for Perez and he was so bad they put him in the bullpen and then ended up releasing him. Boras did the same thing with Jackie Bradley Junior when the Brewers overpaid for him. Boras was comparing Bradley to guys like Willy Mays. Now the Brewers just had to trade 2 prospects to get rid of Bradley’s contract. Boras is actually very smart. He doesn’t care if 29 teams know he is full of it and thinks what he says is stupid. He just has to find one GM or PoBO or owner out there to halfway believe his nonsense and it pays off big for him. His job is to represent players and he makes way more money than any player ever will by making dumb statements like this.
@hammer. Boras doing what he does best fleecing teams. I’m sure the Mets would like a do over on that 36 million dollar contract they benefitted next to nothing from. The players have it rough boys and girls once you put pen to paper you can be horrid and still get paid. Try that in the real word and see how fast you get terminated from your job union or not.
To be fair, Boras doesn’t fleece teams. He convinces dumb teams to fleece themselves. Not that that would absolve him completely.
I always say this, but the GMs don’t listen. Put a number on a player before you even step into the room. DO NOT EXCEED! If Boras makes a good point that you hadn’t considered, sure, adjust your number. But if he hands you the 50-page glossy package, throw it away.
The GMs have only themselves to blame if they believe any of his BS. He is working for his client, not you.
I was sure this had to be a joke. Once again, I’ve underestimated Boras.
It was no joke. Boras actually said those things while trying to coin the nicknames “Big Game Ollie” and “Durable Ollie” all at the same time.
@Joe Brady: I think what happens is teams feel like they “have to have” a certain type of player to compete. So, in the Mets instance they thought they had a good team that was capable of winning it all but they were just one good starting pitcher short. Derek Lowe, AJ Burnett and CC Sabathia had already signed allowing Perez to market himself as the most accomplished free agent staying pitcher. The Mets didn’t want to pay him that much but they knew if they didn’t sign some starting pitcher their team didn’t stand a chance. They didn’t want to punt the whole season so they just listened to Boras’ hype and chose to make the plunge and hope Boras’ assessment was accurate because that was the only way they would stand a chance.
I think Johan Santana was considered the only good SP on their team and he was having injury problems. They had already paid guys like David Wright, Beltran and Jose Reyes a ton of money and thought they had a good offense that could compete with good pitching but wouldn’t compete without it. It was kind of like throwing good money after bad. They figured Perez probably wasn’t worth as much as they were paying him but they didn’t want to waste all the money they spent on other players by not competing.
Perez was awful after the Mets signed that contract so it ended up not helping at all. They should have tried to make another trade instead of believing that a guy who was obviously much worse than Derek Lowe and AJ Burnett could somehow be the answer. I think a lot of players make money this way with big payroll teams. The team already spends so much money but still has a glaring hole so they would rather overpay for someone who plays a specific position rather than go into the season with a very expensive but very flawed roster. It’s really all in their mind. If they can pretend Perez will be as good as Boras says then they can pretend they will win a world series and all the money will have been worth it. In reality, it was wasted money because Perez wasn’t capable of filling the hole they chose to believe he could fill.
This is why it’s so important to have great prospects in the system even during the years you go for it. Instead of overpaying for a guy who isn’t that good because he’s the last starter on the market you can tell him to take what you offer or you will just roll with the good rookie prospects and see where you are at the trade deadline. Perez probably would have had to take less money then but the Mets didn’t have that kind of leverage. Perez knew if the Mets didn’t sign him every one would know they had serious pitching issues. He knew their best bet was to pay him whatever he asked for and just hope it was worth it even if it never would be.
The Mets got themselves into that position by making trades like Scott Kazmir for one season of Victor Zambrano during another failed year where they were “going for it.” Another reason it’s better to try and win by developing good players and bringing them up through your system to actually play instead of just trying to trade them for “more proven” veterans on more expensive shorter term contracts.
For 6 months early it looked that way
Pulling the bandage off that Giles trade. Jason Bay and Perez to the Pirates. Ugh! Perez, eh, Bay hurt!
Giles was pretty solid in SD though!
That’s the quintessential SD trade. PT got 15.1 bWAR from Bay in 6 seasons, while SD got 17.4 in 7 seasons from Giles. The only difference is that PT paid Bay $11M while SD paid Giles $53M.
Pretty amazing that Oliver Perez managed to put in a 19 year MLB career. Looked like he was done back in 2010
What kept him going I wonder?
Probably the $65 million he made in his career.
kept him going bc was left handed pitcher
In his last couple of stints with Cleveland he had perfected being the most annoying pitcher to face. He would use a variety of windups to quick pitch, delay, and generally mess with the timing of any hitter. One pitch he would do an absurd high leg kick, hold it behind his back for a couple of seconds, and then hurl it. The next he would just set and throw as quickly as possible. His little tricks were seemingly taught to Nick Wittgren, who started doing some similar shenanigans.
Also he rocked a hilarious mustache.
I wonder what it was like for his various pitching coaches to work with him? Can’t be easy to work with a guy who likes to experiment with so many different approaches to the plate, especially when most pitchers spend their time trying to hone in on a single one.
It can’t be hard to work with him. Oliver – do you man
Peak Brian Giles was something awesome to watch when I was a kid. When he went to San Diego to be the face of the new ballpark it absolutely destroyed his career.
Definitely fell quite short of his production in Pittsburgh, but he was steadily above-well above average as a Padre.
if four near 40 home run seasons w a .300+ average a 400+ ops and 100 walks almost a lock to boot with Aramis ramirez as your protection is a bad thing I’m missing something. Guy was a gamer on a terrible ball club. He was criminally underrated for his time in Pittsburgh.
He meant that he was very good in pittsburgh and not so much in San Diego lol
I’ll always remember that gutsy NLCS Game 7 start he made in 2006. I almost pulled my hair out knowing he was going to be the starter that night, we had lost El Duque and Pedro to injuries that year. Even though they lost, he made an awesome performance that night. Had they won there would be statues of him and Endy outside The ballpark. But Alas, the Cards were tough as always. Even before the Mets traded for him I used to trade for him in baseball video games like MVP 2004 just cause of his one insane season. Good luck to Ollie and his family. Despite the downs, as always with this team, the highs were euphoric. Thanks for the ride and Darwin bless!
That’s a name I haven’t heard for awhile. Didn’t realize he still played.
Single-handedly saved the Tribe from their slide in 2018. Appreciate his contributions, shame the league has to tinker with dumb rules that led to the final nail in the coffin.
I remember in 2018 the Cleveland bullpen was completely, when Perez was brought in during June. He went on to have both a Sub-2 ERA and FIP and a 313 ERA+
Refused a demotion to AAA during the 2010 season and basically ate up a roster spot. After getting thrown to the lions the last game of the season in a mop up role I wondered about his mental health and had concerns for his safety.
Having both Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo under terrible contracts at the same time felt crippling on the 2008-2010 Mets. That being said, When the Mets first signed Ollie to the 36 mil deal – I thought it made the team better. I remember thinking “He’s a lefty starter who can throw 94! How can this go wrong?” Anyway, congrats on a great career Mr. Perez, I rooted for you in many games.
We need a senior league for MLB as we do for the PGA. Difference would be, we wouldn’t need to test for performance enhancers so we could still have The Rocket throwing heat when he’s 60.
And Barry and Mark crushing it too
They had one years ago (1989) for guys over 35, 32 for catchers. Some guys even signed MLB deals after playing there. Rollie Fingers, Ferguson Jenkins, Vida Blue, Dave Kingman. Look it up.
Heck of a run, Ollie. I remember seeing him in a Friars uni at Qualcomm Stadium aka the Murph! Saludos!
He whined when the Mets wanted to move him to the pen. Seems they were smarter than him. He also threw the pitch on the great Endy Chavez catch against the Cards in the NLCS I believe?
Just looking at his stats, he had that one big year early on, then struggled the next few seasons and didn’t have more than 22 starts until 2007. I wonder if going from 126 innings to 196 innings at age 22 had an adverse effect on his arm?
I have never seen a player more disliked by the team and fans alike than when Olly refused to be sent down in 2010. I am sure that the 3 hitter rule wrecked him as a lefty specialist
Wow 40 years old and still going? Teach your kids to throw lefty.
06-08 Perez on the Mets was one of my favorite SP’s. He really pitched his ass of in the 2006 CS Game 7 against the Cards. It’s just a sin that 4 year extension with the Metsies never panned out. I remember the day he got released in ST along with Louie Castillo within 3 days of each other. Both men were extremely emotional
The GOAT LOOGY
This guy was out every single night in the bars in Pittsburgh. With Jose Castillo. I once saw him so drunk he literally fell on the ground off a bar stool at a restaurant called Nakama in Pittsburgh and then proceed to give up 10 runs in the first inning the next night.