Let’s start this discussion with two things that everyone can agree upon:
- Roberto Pérez catches baseballs and is quite good at it.
- Roberto Pérez swings at baseballs and unless it’s October he is not very good at it.
In a way his continued grasp of the starting catcher job in Cleveland is an experiment designed to push the conventional wisdom of catcher value to its limit. Is an elite defensive catcher who slashes .165/.264/.216 still a good everyday catcher? Just how much does he need to contribute behind the plate to make up for his foibles at it?