Red Sox No. 3: Martin Perez
I’ll admit that I don’t know very much about Martin Perez beyond him being a lefty veteran. He’s been in the league for eight years, spending most of that time with the Rangers and then a year with the Twins. Though the Red Sox do play those teams with relative frequency, I honestly can’t recall a time where Perez left an impression on me.
He signed with Boston just before Christmas on a 1-year/$6.25M deal with a team option for 2021. Based on the economics alone, this was a great move by Chaim Bloom. The team was able to secure another veteran arm after they pretty much lost all of theirs, and did so on the cheap.
Perez is a career 4.72 pitcher so he won’t be coming out to tear down any lineups, but he can be a reliable turn man, going from the aces to the back end of the rotation.
I did watch him in spring training this year where he was pretty promising in his outings. He finished 0-1 in three starts with a 1.35 ERA and 10 K’s to just 3 BB’s. Not bad, again as the three-man he isn’t expected to be lights-out every night, he simply has to get the game late to get the bullpen involved.