In 2014, the (seemingly) unbreakable Salvador Perez established what STATS LLC documented as a major-league record for starts behind the plate with 158 — including 15 in the postseason.
A few weeks later, at the MLB Winter Meetings in San Diego, then-Royals manager Ned Yost acknowledged the unsustainability of wringing so much out of Perez, his All-Star catcher.
“I can’t catch Sal 150 games again,” Yost said then. “I can’t. I’ll kill the kid.”
But the next season, Perez started 153 games — 16 in the postseason — on his way to becoming the World Series MVP.
What didn’t kill him apparently made him stronger. Because Perez emerged as an irresistible force in more ways than one — including to managers trying to restrain themselves.
Thus began a rite of spring for the Royals, who remain graced by Perez’s buoyancy and Terminator-like durability. His career continues with a two-year contract extension, ambitions of another Royals resurgence and the prospect of enhancing his potential National Baseball Hall of Fame credentials.
With 30 home runs and 100 RBIs even as he turned 35 last season, Perez retains the clout and aura that left current Kansas City manager Matt Quatraro wondering last spring if Perez is, in fact, “a unicorn.”
This time around, though, there’s an entirely new dynamic at play in how much time Perez will spend behind the plate — one that should be win-win for the Royals.
While the Royals have had capable backups for Perez before, most notably Freddy Fermin, Friday in Atlanta will mark their first opening day since the advent of Perez in 2011 that they’ve engaged an heir apparent.
That next-in-line is Carter Jensen, the promising Park Hill High School graduate who made a striking impression last September after his call-up from Triple-A Omaha. In 69 big-league plate appearances, Jensen hit .300 with doubles, three home runs and 13 RBIs and walked nine times.
It’s a small sample size, to be sure, but it also affirmed what the Royals have seen in Jensen since drafting him 78th overall in 2021.
And they have enough conviction about his development that the plan, as it stands entering the season, is for the left-handed hitting Jensen to catch approximately half the time, general manager J.J. Picollo said in a telephone interview with The Star.
Perhaps out of habit over the last decade-plus of how Perez regenerates himself, Picollo joked “don’t hold me to it” but promptly added that the Royals feel “pretty comfortable” with this tentative plan.
For several reasons.
It enables some essential development of Jensen, whom Perez is generously mentoring — and who along with outfielder Jac Caglianone represents a key variable in the Royals’ pivotal pursuit of offensive improvement this season.
The prospective shared role also gives Perez a better chance to take care of his body and thus stay productive offensively.
That includes through increasingly frequent turns as KC’s designated hitter and, at times, first baseman.
“Salvy is still going to be in the lineup every day,” Picollo said.
Meanwhile, Jensen has a chance to become an almost daily presence, too. Beyond catching often, Picollo said if he’s swinging the bat well he could be at DH “a fair amount.”
“So I think he’s got an opportunity to play pretty much every day,” the GM said. “If he was able to be in the starting lineup 75-80% of the time, that would be awesome.”
Naturally, Perez surely still wants to catch as often as possible.
The last time I spoke with him about it was at spring training 2025, a few weeks after Picollo and Quatraro had visited him in Miami to speak with him about extending his career by resting him more.
It wasn’t immediately clear how much that conversation really took with Perez. Because amid the annual speculation and deliberations about how much he’d play, he simply stated his usual case about how much he wanted to play: “One-hundred percent,” he said, laughing. “You know that.”
Just the same, Perez has proven more amenable to the bigger-picture notion than might seem evident. Although he’s started 158 and 155 games overall the last two seasons, for instance, in three years under Quatraro, Perez has started 90, 90 and 89 games at catcher.
In the process, Perez recorded his first back-to-back 100-plus RBI seasons and burnished his potential Hall of Fame resume: With 303 career home runs and 1,016 runs driven in, he’s just the eighth primary catcher to achieve both feats. The bat he used last September to break the barriers went to the Hall of Fame, and the case of the nine-time All-Star will become increasingly intriguing going forward.
While it’s subordinate to the Royals’ on-field ambitions, part of Perez’s case may hinge on retaining that “primarily a catcher” status that he still enjoys with more than 80% of his career MLB starts coming behind the plate. Maybe that will be something for the Royals to consider at this goes along.
Still, the best-case scenario for the club is clear: Perez keeps sipping from the fountain of youth by playing fewer games behind the plate, Jensen injects more life into the offense and the Royals return to the postseason for the second time in three years.
Because as irresistible as it’s been over the years to keep Perez as a pillar behind the plate, it’s never been more potentially fruitful to further transition. Both in the near term and for the future.
Related Stories from Kansas City Star
The Kansas City Star
Vahe Gregorian has been a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star since 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered a wide spectrum of sports, including 10 Olympics. Vahe was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master’s degree at Mizzou.