As baseball welcomed three new members into Cooperstown on January 21, 2025, I wondered what Salvador Perez needed to see himself in the club one day. Perez has already done more than enough to go down as a Royals legend who will almost certainly be inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame; however, the MLB Hall of Fame is a tougher task. Diving into his legendary career, let’s evaluate Perez’s chances at becoming just the second career Royal ever to reach Cooperstown.
Hall of Fame History
Making the Baseball Hall of Fame is beyond tough. Doing it as a catcher? Nearly impossible. After the 2025 class was inducted, the MLB Hall of Fame now includes 356 players and 20 catchers. Joe Mauer is the only catcher to make his debut since the turn of this century and reach Cooperstown. The voters treat the league’s Hall of Fame as a sacred group, which makes getting in a real honor.
Even all-time greats such as Barry Bonds don’t get in; if there’s a blemish on your record, kiss your chances goodbye. Whereas the NBA or NFL may overlook a cheating scandal or legal issues, baseball will not. Voters can get on fans’ nerves with how picky and old-fashioned they go about their ballots, but the reality is until a younger generation takes over, getting into the Hall of Fame is going to be extremely difficult.
The Case for Perez
Salvador Perez has built up a fantastic resume through 13 seasons in the majors. Below is a list of all the accolades Perez has stacked to this point in his career.
- 9x All-Star
- 5x Gold Glove
- 5x Silver Slugger
- World Series MVP
- 2015 World Series Champion
- Roberto Clemente Humanitarian Award
From a stats perspective, Perez is on the cusp of joining an elite group at the catcher position. Rather it be this upcoming season or in the future, Perez is 27 home runs shy of joining the 300 club, a feat only seven catchers have reached in baseball history. Only one catcher has ever reached the 300-homer club and not made the Hall of Fame. It’s not an automatic bid but it does bode well for Perez’s chances if he were to reach the club, and with how he’s hitting the ball there is a realistic chance he could work his way into the top five all-time in home runs for a catcher.
Power isn’t Perez’s only strength pushing him toward Cooperstown. Anyone who watches the Royals knows how much joy Salvy gets from the game, and he does all he can to give it back to the community. Being an upstanding citizen and charismatic player doesn’t get you into the Hall of Fame, but it definitely can help. Being the leader of a team is an important role, and I don’t believe any voter could cast their vote without at least considering the impact Perez made on the community and the Royals.
The Case Against Perez
Of course, many voters will not be as fond of Perez, and there are multiple reasons. One of the biggest flaws in Perez’s game has been his plate discipline. Perez strikes out on average 123 times a season while only drawing 25 walks. On top of the strikeouts, Perez has finished with an OBP lower than .300 seven times in his career. Voters may view his accumulative stats as just a few great seasons on top of average ones, which would hurt his chances.
Switching to behind the plate, Perez plays in a time that no other Hall of Fame catcher had to, the Statcast era. The advanced analytics have not been kind to Perez, consistently ranking him as one of the worst framing catchers in the league. We have yet to see players from this newer era be voted on, and it will be interesting to pay attention to how voters use Statcast to vote if they do at all. The Gold Gloves will probably hold more weight than any advanced metric, but I wouldn’t rule out Perez losing votes from his lackluster defense in the latter half of his career.
The last and maybe most important argument against Perez is his career WAR. Heading into the 2025 season, Perez has accumulated 35.5 WAR, which ranks 29th all-time amongst catchers in baseball history. The average WAR for catchers in the Hall of Fame is 48.4, meaning if Perez were to average 2.5 WAR, which he put up last year, it would take him a little over five more seasons to reach that mark.
The Verdict
Perez is one of the more polarizing Hall of Fame cases that voters will be given the task to evaluate. While he doesn’t possess an MVP or have out-of-this-world numbers, Perez has been one of the top catchers in baseball for well over a decade now, and his accumulative stats are creeping into Cooperstown territory. If he retired today, I would say there’s no chance of him getting in, but if Perez strings together a few more strong seasons before calling it quits, his case will be one to track through the years of his name on the ballot. I’m not sure as Perez gets into his older 30s, he will be able to quite make a push into the club, but with Perez, it’s hard to ever count him out.
VERDICT: Leaning no.