Red Sox LHP: Martín Pérez
This one hurts, buds. If you’ve followed anything I’ve written on this website you know how much I love Martín Pérez. Now, It’s hard to defend his starts at times, well, a lot of the time, but I can’t deny how much this guy loves this team. We’re talking about a dude who went on the Section-10 Podcast before he was even re-signed to the club and was hyping them up and shit-talking the Yankees, that’s my kind of player.
However, when we get down to the brass tax and look at the numbers, I just can’t see Chaim bringing back Martín for 2022. He’s learning a base salary of $4.5M for this season plus his $500K buyout from his previous deal.
Going forward he has a similar deal in which he has either a club option for 2022 of $6M or a $500K buyout. There will be a free agent list a mile long of starters this winter and I believe that the Red Sox will go shopping for a new lefty.
Things would’ve gone differently for Pérez had he been able to recapture some of his 2020 magic. In a season ravaged by COVID and uncertainty, he was the lone constant for this club. You knew that he would go out there every fifth day and give you every drop of fuel he had in the tank. He was Boston’s most consistent pitcher through last year.
He’s only gone past five innings a handful of times in 2021 and like Richards, he was moved to the bullpen to make room for a better starter. If he was able to show more consistency in his starts I think he would be a great returning face for next year but it just wasn’t the case.
As much as it hurts me to say this, we better enjoy each and every Pérez Day we have left on the calendar because I don’t think we’ll be having many more in the future.