The Nationals finally made a free agent signing to their bullpen, bringing in Cionel Perez on a minor league deal. This is different from the other minor league deals they have signed, as Perez has a good chance of making the team. Before a disastrous 2025, Perez was a mainstay in the Orioles bullpen.<\/p>\n
If Perez makes the team, he will make<\/a> $1.9 million plus another $700,000 in potential incentives. As long as he does not look terrible this spring, Perez should make the team. From 2022-2024, Perez made at least 60 appearances in the O\u2019s bullpen. He posted<\/a> a combined 3.12 ERA in those three seasons.<\/p>\n So what made Perez such an effective reliever over those seasons and why did he fall off a cliff in 2025? Well, Perez is elite at generating ground balls with his heavy sinker. For his career, Perez has posted<\/a> a 55.5% GB rate. Even in his horrible 2025 season, he still was great at keeping the ball on the ground, with a 58.2% GB rate.<\/p>\n However, Perez is not a big strikeout guy and has had control issues throughout his career. That makes him reliant on his defense and batted ball luck. Last season, he was a victim of terrible batted ball luck, with a .379 BABIP. This bad luck, combined with a 16.4% walk rate was why Perez posted<\/a> an 8.31 ERA in 19 outings.<\/p>\n Despite some of these awful numbers, statcast was still bullish on him. Last season, his xERA was a respectable 3.93 despite his awful surface level numbers. His actual batting average<\/a> against was .322 but his xBA<\/a> was .213. I am not sure I have ever seen a gap that wide.<\/p>\n These discrepancies make him an interesting bounce back candidate for the Nats. If Perez can get his walk rate closer to 10% and he has better batted ball luck, Cionel Perez can be a solid piece in the bullpen. In a bullpen from January, he was already sitting 95-96, which is nice to see this early in the offseason.<\/p>\n His velocity has gone from 97 in 2022 to 95.6 last year, so hopefully he can recapture some of that old velo. There are a lot of if\u2019s here, but Perez has the ceiling of a dependable middle reliever. On this team, that probably means looks at the back end of the bullpen.<\/p>\n Honestly, Perez does a lot of the same stuff that the traded Jose A. Ferrer did. Both are left handers who throw very hard but are ground ball oriented pitchers rather than strikeout guys. The biggest difference though is that Ferrer has much better control.<\/p>\n Another thing I am interested about here is if they will make any tweaks with Perez. Last season, he threw<\/a> a sinker, a new slider, a slurve and a 4-seam. Despite being added before the worst year of his career, Perez\u2019s new slider was actually very effective. It was a nice complement to his slurve, which had been his primary secondary pitch for years.<\/p>\n