Welcome to The Opener, where every weekday morning you’ll get a fresh, topical column to start your day from one of SI.com’s MLB writers.
When Salvador Perez signed his $82-million, four-year contract extension with the Royals back in March, it was easy to believe that we had already seen the best of his baseball career. That is not to say that the extension was unreasonable or that there was no hope of continued solid play from Perez. It is only to say that catching is often terribly grueling, and there is an assumption for the sad, uncompromising bend of that aging curve, and Perez was about to turn 31.