Martin Perez’s hot start shouldn’t be a surprise

4-11-24 – By Ethan Smith – @mvp_EtHaN on X

If you listened to me on Locked On Pirates during the off-season, you’d know I was very big on the Pirates acquiring Martin Perez, and for good reason.

For a team like the Pittsburgh Pirates, I am all about them acquiring veteran talent with solid track records, and they have done that quite a bit over the past couple seasons, acquiring Tyler Anderson, Jose Quintana, Rich Hill and now Perez, and the theme between the four remains the same.

All of them are soft-tossing left-handed pitchers, and the Pirates did well with the previous three additions, and albeit those additions were eventually traded, they still had impacts. Perez on the other hand though, feels different.

Perez is a career 4.40 ERA guy with over 1450 innings under his belt, including a stellar 2022 campaign that saw him receive his lone All-Star appearance, and he’s been one of baseball more consistent pitchers across his 13 seasons.

Of his 13 MLB seasons, Perez has 20 or more starts in seven of them, proof of his health being rather good throughout his career. 2023 saw him be buried in a loaded Texas Rangers rotation that saw plenty of deadline acquisitions, which opened the door in free agency for his eventual arrival to the Pirates.

Now, entering 2024, questions arose on if Perez could return to his 2022 All-Star form, and so far, he’s been electric.

Through his first three starts, Perez has thrown 19 innings, posting a 1.89 ERA and 1.21 WHIP, striking out 15 and walking only five along the way thus far, which includes a strong eight inning, one run outing on Tuesday.

To what should be no surprise to anyone, the biggest reason for his success early on has been something he’s done well his entire career, and that’s forcing ground ball outs.

According to StatCast, Perez is inducing ground balls at a 55.2-percent rate right now, which ranks in the 86th percentile among qualified pitchers while also missing barrels (5.2%) at a solid clip as well.

For context, excluding 2020, Perez has ranked in the 51st percentile or higher in ground ball rate in every season since 2015, so letting the defense work behind him has always been apart of his game.

We’ve also seen Perez work in just about every pitch in his arsenal, throwing four of his five pitches 14-percent of the time or more, those being his sinker(34.3%), cutter(27.7%), changeup(20.3%) and curveball(14.8%).

Most of his success has come from the sinker thus far, which he throws the most as you see above, allowing a measly .207 opponent batting average and zero extra base hits. Speaking of extra base hits, of the 18 hits Perez has given up this season, he has only allowed four extra base hits.

Perez is also allowing the third lowest barrel rate(5.2%) of his career and his lowest opposite field contact rate (22.4%) since 2019, so he’s done well keeping the ball in the yard and showed Tuesday that PNC Park should be a perfect fit for him.

So, to simplify it for those who may not enjoy advanced statistics, Perez is doing what he has done his entire career, induce ground balls, eliminate hard contact and limit the home run ball, all of which we’ve seen in his first three starts.

Now, is this sustainable for Perez? He’s a notoriously good starter early on in seasons, as he posts a career 3.74 ERA in March, April and May and a 4.99 ERA in June and July, so that will be something to keep a close eye on as the season progresses.

As for the present, Perez has been the best pitcher in the starting rotation to begin the season for the Pirates, and it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, seeing as he’s doing exactly what he’s done well his entire career and should continue to do so in a Pirates uniform.