ARLINGTON -- Salvador Perez is on to the next round of All-Star voting.
The veteran Royals catcher was announced as a finalist to be an All-Star starter on Sunday and moved on to the next phase of voting. You can vote NOW until Thursday at 1 p.m. CT. The All-Star starters will be announced on Thursday at 8 p.m. on ESPN. Pitchers and reserves will be revealed on July 4 at 4:30 p.m. on ESPN. The All-Star Game is July 13 on FOX.
Perez, who was hitting .281/.310/.517 with 18 homers entering Sunday’s game against the Rangers, hasn’t made his seventh All-Star Game yet -- he still has to stay on top of the AL catchers race through one more phase of voting to make the team as a starter.
But he blew away the competition in Phase 1 of voting.
The 31-year-old drew the third-most votes in the Majors with 2,150,968, behind Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (2,704,788) and Ronald Acuña Jr. (2,510,041). Perez received more votes than Mike Trout (2,084,542) and Fernando Tatis Jr. (2,052,642) and more than three times the votes that his fellow catching finalists received: Astros backstop and former Royal Martín Maldonado had 644,173 votes, and White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal had 504,850.
Perez, long heralded as one of the best catchers in the Majors, has been on an even bigger tear since he returned from Tommy John surgery in 2019. Last season, he hit .333 with 11 home runs in 37 games, and he was rewarded for his offensive output, defensive skillset and veteran leadership in Kansas City with a four-year, $82 million contract that begins next season and has a club option for 2026.
This year, Perez has shown that the small sample size from the pandemic-shortened season wasn’t an anomaly; he’s been the Royals’ most consistent and dangerous bat and played in all 76 of their games either as catcher or the designated hitter entering Sunday's series finale against the Rangers.
He can seemingly do it all, and that’s probably the most impressive thing about him
“You have a guy, who first has the ability to keep going back behind the plate and doing a nice job -- he’s getting beat up this year,” manager Mike Matheny said. “Lot of work with balls in the dirt, moving well. He’s been very disciplined in how he’s preparing, how he’s doing all this extra work pregame. The thing that is probably what you can’t see is just how much time and effort he’s putting into his pitchers. Especially some of these young guys that need some direction and some help. The game planning and how he is teaching.
“So you’re talking about a full-time job, getting yourself ready to be behind the plate, a full-time job to go and be one of our most consistent and dangerous bats and another full-time job teaching a group of young pitchers. He has really been impressive to be able to juggle all of that and do it all well.”
As Perez looks to compete in another Midsummer Classic, he’s tied for eighth in the Majors with 18 home runs, making him a potential candidate for the 2021 Home Run Derby held at Coors Field next month. Perez said recently he thinks he would participate if asked, and his power would be a threat in the altitude in Denver.
And despite the demands of the catching position, Matheny thinks that the way Perez takes batting practice every day shows why he could handle the work that comes with participating in the Derby while not messing with his swing.
“I think when you’re having a special season and you’re a special player, those are rewards. Those are honors,” Matheny said. “I’ve been hesitant in the past with certain guys because I’ve seen them go up there and just try to yank, but I get to throw to Salvy every day, and watching his approach, he uses the middle of the field, which is impressive in big parks. He’s still able to keep a really good bat path, which is using the middle of the field, and working on using his legs and getting elevation, it actually plays into the kind of swing path that he needs.
“If he got away from that and just started to pull and yank balls out of the park, I think that would probably be something in the long haul not good for him, but he has a real nice approach right now, while still putting on a show every BP he gets a chance to hit on the field.”