7:22pm: The contract guarantees $25MM, reports Anne Rogers of MLB.com. The deal includes some amount of deferred money, so it’ll probably provide a bit of short-term flexibility relative to just exercising the option.
7:03pm: The Royals have agreed to a two-year extension with franchise backstop Salvador Perez, the team announced. The deal covers the 2026-27 seasons. Kansas City previously had a $13.5MM club option for the upcoming campaign. General manager J.J. Picollo said at the end of September that the Royals would bring Perez back, though he left open the possibility of a new contract rather than simply exercising the option.
That’s indeed how things played out. Teams and players have until Thursday to decide on all option decisions. That presumably served as an unofficial deadline for the Royals and Perez to get things sorted out. While salary terms have yet to be reported, it stands to reason they’ll negotiate a lower ’26 salary than the option value while giving Perez the security of the second guaranteed year.
Perez, 36 in May, is headed into his 15th full season in the big leagues. He’s obviously one of the most accomplished players in franchise history and seems likely to be a Royal for life. He’s seventh in franchise history in games played and trails only George Brett in both home runs and runs batted in. Perez isn’t going to make up the nearly 600 RBI he’d need to run down Brett, but he should become the franchise’s home run leader next season barring a significant injury. He has 303 longballs, placing him 14 behind the Hall of Famer’s career total.
A healthy Perez should still easily hit 15+ homers in 2026. He drilled 30 round-trippers this year and has eclipsed 20 homers in all but one full schedule dating back to 2014. The lone exception was the ’19 season which he missed due to Tommy John surgery. Perez trailed only Cal Raleigh, Shea Langeliers and Hunter Goodman among primary catchers this past season. Raleigh is the only other catcher who drove in at least 100 runs.
While Perez remains a legitimate power threat, the flaws in his game are equally well known. He has never been a patient hitter, and he’s coming off his third sub-.300 OBP in the past four seasons. Perez hit .236/.284/.446 across 641 trips to the plate. The overall slash line is a little worse than league average despite the gaudy homer and RBI tallies. It is still strong production from the catcher position, but Perez has begun to branch out to first base or designated hitter a little more often as he has gotten into his mid-30s.
Perez still has a plus arm and did an excellent job shutting down the running game this year. Pitch framing metrics have panned his receiving work throughout his career. That remained the case in 2025. Statcast also graded him as the second-worst blocking catcher in the sport, better only than Marlins’ rookie Agustín Ramírez (who somehow committed 19 passed balls in 73 games).
There’s very little chance that Wins Above Replacement models are going to look favorably on this deal. Both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference had Perez only marginally above replacement this year. The Royals have long valued the player a lot more highly than public advanced metrics would suggest. He has always been a highly respected clubhouse presence and fan favorite, and he won the Roberto Clemente award in 2024 for his contributions in the community (both in Kansas City and his native Venezuela). He served as the bridge between their 2015 World Series team and the ’24 club that finally returned to the playoffs after a nine-year drought.
More to come.