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B a s e b a l l
M e x i c o
Monday,
August 31, 2020
PEGUERO
TO REJOIN NARANJEROS THIS SEASON
The Hermosillo Naranjeros last
Friday announced their three allowable foreign-born players for the
upcoming
Mexican Pacific League season, including a Dominican outfielder who's
become
one of the top hitters in both leagues south of the border in recent
seasons.
Francisco Peguero will be back for a
third winter with the Orangemen after coming to terms with the team.
Last
season, Peguero hit .337 with seven homers in 33 games for Hermosillo
but it
was his initial 2018-19 LMP campaign that raised the most eyebrows
among
observers. That year, he hit .352 to edge teammate Jasson Atondo by one
point
on the final day of the season for the Mex Pac batting title. Peguero
also finished
fourth in the circuit with 44 RBIs and tied for tenth with six homers
over 54
games.
The former San Francisco Giants
gardener has had a greater impact during the summer in the Mexican
League.
Peguero debuted with Quintana Roo in 2015 and hit .294 with 16 homers
for the
Tigres. After a postseason trade to Monclova, he batted .311 with 15
homers for
the Steelers in 2016. That was enough to earn a 2017 contract with the
Toyama
GRN Thunderbirds of the independent Baseball Challenge League in Japan,
where he
set a season record with 114 hits. Peguero then spent part of 2018 with
the NPB
Chiba Lotte Marines' farm team (hitting .277 with nine homers in 50
games)
before returning to Monclova in time for the LMB's Fall season, and
that's when
he really hit his stride.
During that truncated 56-game
season, Peguero batted .368 with 13 homers and 60 ribbies and was named
the
Liga's Most Valuable Player for his efforts. The 6'0" right-hander
followed that up with another terrific season for the Acereros in 2019,
belting
31 homers, driving in 106 runs and hitting .380 as Monclova went on to
win
their first pennant in 46 years of existence. He's expected to help
anchor the
middle of the Hermosillo batting order for manager Juan Navarrete.
Also joining the 32-year-old Peguero
with the Naranjeros this year will be Cuban outfielder Yadiel Hernandez
and
American pitcher Mike Kickham, both of whom also played in Hermosillo
in
2019-20. Hernandez debuted at 21 with his hometown Matanzas team in
2009-10 and
hit .328 during the Cuban National Series that winter. He spent six
seasons
with the Cocodrilos, batting .324 with 53 homers over 514 games before
defecting to the U.S. while playing against college teams in North
Carolina in
April 2015.
The Washington Nationals signed Hernandez
for $200,000 a year later and he's since spent three summers in their
farm
system, batting an aggregate .301 and crashing 63 homers despite his
5'9"
frame. Hernandez had a banner year with Fresno in the AAA Pacific Coast
League
last year with a .323 average, 33 homers and 90 RBIs and was a Nats
non-roster
Spring Training invitee this year. The 32-year-old hit .336 for the
Naranjeros
last winter, finishing second to Los Mochis' Isaac Rodriguez for the
batting
title, while his .462 on-base percentage (thanks to an LMP-best 50
walks) was
tops in the Mex Pac. As with Peguero, the lefty-batting Hernandez will
likely
be a middle-of-the-order batter for the Orangemen this winter.
Kickham was a teammate with Peguero
when both played for San Francisco in September 2013 (each spent parts
of two
seasons with the Giants) after signing as sixth-round draft pick out of
Missouri State University in 2010. The 6'4" lefty spent five years in
the
Giants system before the Chicago Cubs picked him up on waivers after
the 2014
season. That began a baseball odyssey during which the Cubs traded the
31-year-old to the Mariners a month after acquiring him. Kickham ended
up
pitching for four different organizations (Mariners, Rangers, Marlins
and the
Giants once more), plus a 2016 stint with Kansas City of the
independent
American Association. He was a 2017 Southern League midseason All-Star
pitching
for the Marlins' AA Jacksonville farm club.
In 2019, Kickham went 5-5 with a
4.27 ERA splitting time between the starting rotation and the bullpen
for the
Marlins' AAA affiliate in New Orleans, and was a non-roster invitee at
the
Boston Red Sox training camp this year before the Wuhan virus halted
the
baseball baseball season in its tracks. He made his first appearance in
Mexican
baseball last winter for Hermosillo and was outstanding, going 4-2 with
a 1.97
ERA in seven starts, and will likely be in manager Navarrete's rotation
this
winter.
LMB
WOULD HAVE OPENED TO
EMPTY BALLPARKS IN 2020
According to a story on the SeptimaEntrada.com website,
the Mexican
League would have started their delayed 2020 season playing in empty
ballparks
if they'd moved forward with their tentative plans for a shortened
schedule.
Instead, conditions brought on by a pandemic that has spread across
Mexico
caused LMB president Horacio de la Vega and the loop's team owners to
cancel
the season instead.
In hindsight, that turned out to be
a wise decision. Septima Entrada writer
Irving Furlong reports that when the abandoned August 7 opening day
arrived, all
16 Liga teams were located within 14 states that had "red" or
"orange" designations under Mexico's so-called Traffic Light system
determining what type of activities will be allowed while the pandemic
remains
a problem. According to the system, a red traffic light means a maximum
level
of restrictions is applied, allowing only activities deemed essential
and no
public gatherings, while an orange traffic light indicates a high level
of
restrictions with some easing from red standards.
Given that sporting events at which
fans would be allowed to attend will only be allowed in yellow-light
(medium
security) and green-light (low security) states, along with the
longterm
uncertainty in virus management, the LMB announced their
better-safe-then-sorry
decision to call off the 2020 season on July 1 with an eye on readying
for a
2021 schedule.
According to Furlong, among LMB
North franchises, only Tijuana and Aguascalientes were in orange-light
states
on August 7 while the remaining six teams operate in red-light states,
including three in Nuevo Leon: Monterrey, Monclova and Union Laguna.
Things
were a little better in the LMB South, where Puebla, Tabasco and
Yucatan were
the only three teams in red-light states. In all, nine Mexican League
teams
were in red-light states while the remaining seven were in orange-light
states.
Mexican Ministry of Health
undersecretary Hugo Lopez Gatell said that as long as red or orange
traffic
light restrictions were in effect, professional sporting events could
only take
place behind closed doors. De la Vega said in an interview that it was
not
feasible to play without an audience in the stands, since around 60-70
percent
of the income of LMB clubs comes from the box office and the general
sales
inside stadiums.
In addition, Furlong says de la Vega
told Septima Entrada prior to the
decision to cancel the season that teams not receiving governmental
authorization to open their gates to fans for games might have chosen
to sit
out the season regardless of what was decided on a leaguewide level,
making the
LMB a short circuit (so to speak) this summer. Ultimately, all 16 team
owners
reportedly agreed that conditions made calling off the schedule the
only
prudent choice they could make.
PEREYRA:
OLIVER PEREZ HAS
ADJUSTED, SURVIVED
On
July 26, Oliver Perez pitched in relief late in a game for the
Cleveland
Indians against Kansas City. The trip from the Tribe bullpen was his
first in
2020, marking the eighteenth season he's appeared in a Major League
Baseball
game. That makes him the longest-serving Mexican player in big league
history,
breaking the record of 17 seasons he'd shared with Fernando Valenzuela,
Juan
Gabriel Castro and the late Aurelio Rodriguez.
Proceso.com.mx
writer Beatriz Pereyra interviewed Perez after the historic event and
talked
about how the Culiacan native has had to adjust his approach to
pitching and
life to still be pitching in the majors long after his 2002 debut with
San
Diego. We repeat the translated column in its entirety here:
October
3, 2010. Last
game of the season. The New York Mets face the Washington Nationals at
home,
both in the basement of the NL East. Mexican Óliver Pérez comes in to
pitch the
14th inning of a game tied at one run apiece.
It's been 27 days since the
left-hander has left the bullpen. Since May he has not been in the
starting
rotation. Not even as a reliever did the Mets use him. All season he
has
swallowed the boos of New York fans who deride his disastrous
performances.
After striking out the first batter,
Perez, the first player from Culiacan to reach the major leagues, gives
up one
hit. Unable to throw strikes, he walks two. Full house. Another base on
balls.
The winning run scores. Thirty pitches, of which only 11 were strikes.
Óliver
Pérez leaves the field of play under a rain of complaints. Final score:
Washington 2, Mets 1.
At the end of the season, the Mets
fired manager Jerry Manuel and general manager Omar Minaya, the one
responsible
for giving a three-year, $36 million contract to Oliver Perez, the
left-handed
pitcher who was completing his fifth season with the team (ninth in the
majors)
and who, after he signed for that amount, the saints turned their backs
on.
The team also released the Mexican.
The Mets board didn't mind paying him the $12 million they still owed
him as
long as he left. There would be no 2011 for Óliver Pérez in New York,
where the
press berated him periodically and reporters hounded him every day like
wasps
with stinging stings.
"It was very painful,” says
Oliver. “Even if you are making millions, they come and tell you: 'We
don't
want you here anymore, get off the team!' It's very ugly. You feel like
the
smallest being on Earth; you want to hide because you think that
everyone looks
at you with hatred. I could have said: 'I'm staying, I have a
contract,' but
I'm not a conformist. I put up with that season and at the end, I
continued
preparing.”
July
26, 2020. Third
game of an atypical season due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Cleveland
Indians
host the Kansas City Royals in a duel of teams from the American League
Central
Division. The Mexican Óliver Pérez enters to pitch in the seventh
inning of the
game that the locals are winning 8-2. The southpaw is part of the
relief corps,
which in baseball is known as a "situational pitcher." He won a
contract for this year because in 2019 he exceeded 55 appearances by
participating in 67 games.
After teammate Carlos Carrasco
allows a double, manager Terry Francona sends Pérez to restore order.
He
strikes out two opponents and the third rolls out to first base.
Fifteen
pitches, nine were strikes. Óliver Pérez leaves the field and his
teammates
congratulate him in the dugout. Final score: Cleveland 9, Kansas City 2.
With this performance Pérez became
the first Mexican player to reach 18 seasons in the Major Leagues. A
pale
shadow remains of that tall player who made his debut with the San
Diego Padres
on June 16, 2002 at 20 years and 305 days. He is no longer that 97 mph
fastball
shooter who can strike out 239 opponents in one season.
Effort and
perseverance
The 671 games in which Pérez has
participated –195 as a starter and 476 as a reliever– and the 1,441
innings he
has thrown have helped him to learn that skill is better than strength,
that in
baseball not everything is joy, that you learn to get up after you
fall, that
sacrifices have rewards, and that if you have to go down to the Minor
Leagues
there, you have to start over again.
“It's an honor to have played all
this time,” Perez remarks. “What I've been through has not been easy.
I've wondered
in recent months how important this record is. All the Mexicans who
have
stepped into the Major Leagues must be an example for the new
generations, to
show who we are and telling children that everything is achieved with
effort
and dedication, even if there are stumbling blocks. "
This year, Pérez should be
celebrating the start of his 19th season in the majors, but the setback
he
suffered left him out during 2011. That year he spent with Harrisburg,
the
Washington Nationals' AA farm team where he trained alongside of boys
between
the ages of 18 and 20 who looked at him from the bottom up because he
was a
major league player.
There, among kids, Pérez rebuilt
himself with the help of Rafael “El Paisa” Arroyo, the Mets bullpen
catcher
whom he first befriended and now both call each other brothers. With
his
experience managing pitchers although he never played in the major
leagues,
Arroyo (a Los Angeles-born Mexican-American) took on Oliver's problems.
Arroyo witnessed how, with the Mets,
Pérez's fastball lost speed, topping out at 89 MPH. He believes Perez
misplaced
security and trust. It didn't matter that Oliver arrived early, trained
hard
and was always ready to get on the mound. Fortune abandoned him.
Together, they
began to train with barbells and gym equipment, ate better and
discussed in
long conversations why they could not correct their course.
“I had tendinitis in his right knee
in the leg I land on after every pitch,” says Perez. “One must land
with the
tip of the foot forward and mine fell horizontally. At the moment of
turning
the foot, the knee twisted. Imagine that for 100 pitches, over who
knows how
many games? One day it had to give. They were three very difficult
years (from
2008 to 2010). That happened to me by not saying that I wasn't well and
insisting on playing.”
For this reason it altered his
pitching mechanics. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get out of
the
pothole. The Mets asked Perez to go to the minor leagues to try to
compose
himself. The player, thinking that to qualify for a pension he must
accumulate
10 years of service in the Major Leagues, exercised his right of
refusal.
His agent, Scott Boras, famous for
landing clients multi-year contracts in exchange for millions of
dollars,
advised him not to agree to leave the roster of 25.
After the Mets released him, he went
along with Arroyo, first to Phoenix and then to Culiacán. In the midst
of
family support, he tried to get ahead. Before the start of the 2010-11
season
of the Mexican Pacific League, he trained to be fit and play with the
Tomateros, but he was booed there too. He still couldn't find the
strike zone
and opponents were hitting him.
“I had to start from scratch. I had
no team and that's when Washington caught me in 2011 to go to the
minors. I felt
the taste of the game again. I was with young kids and I also felt like
a kid
at 29 years old. That motivated me. They called me a leader and copied
how I
trained. I had a good season and that helped make Seattle notice me in
2012."
Great support
In his eagerness to help Oliver,
Rafael Arroyo searched for videos of when he played for San Diego. He
wanted to
understand why his fastball had lost speed. He found that to compensate
for the
pain in his knee, the Culichi stooped
down and that changed the angle of his arm and took away his strength.
It took
a lot to correct it. Barbell training, jogging on Camelback Mountain in
Phoenix
and shedding a few pounds also helped.
“Oliver gained strength and
confidence, increased the speed of his fastball and started the rumor
that he
was in shape and ready to return,” says Arroyo. “Seattle gave him the
opportunity to be a reliever and he did great because having to face
fewer
batters using fewer pitches, he could throw more than 97 MPH.”
In June 2012, just 10 years after
his major league debut, Pérez returned to San Diego with the Seattle
Mariners
to face the team that opened the doors for him for the first time.
“It was watching the game go round.
Everything was perfect. His family was there. Confidence is very
important in
this game and when you're not pitching regularly, you start to doubt.
You have
no control of the ball. You are not well physically, mentally nor
emotionally
but when you adjust, everything works,” explains the ex-catcher, now a
physical
trainer for other Mexican major leaguers such as Luis Cessa and Julio
Urías.
Two seasons with Seattle led to
one-and-a-half with the Arizona Diamondbacks, a few months with the
Houston
Astros and two more with the Washington Nationals, where he became a
left-hander
specializing in dominating left-handed hitters. The idea came from
pitching
coach Spin Williams, with whom Pérez worked in his early major league
days with
the Pittsburgh Pirates. Back then, Williams recommended that the
Nationals sign
him for the Minors in 2011.
The advice couldn't have been
better. “You have a very good arm. You throw really well against
lefties,”
advised Williams, “so go to the bullpen and learn how to dominate
lefties.”
Perez eventually pitched for Washington in the 2016 and 2017 campaigns.
Statistics show that starting in
2012, when the average speed of his fastball was 94 miles per hour
(with peaks
of up to 97), Pérez began to challenge left-handed hitters by putting
the ball
in the center of the plate and not on the inside corner like he used to.
His rate of home runs allowed for
every nine innings has also decreased, which is paradoxical because the
trend
in the major leagues has been for pitchers to give up more and more
home runs.
Pérez also stopped regularly using his sinker, a weapon with which
lefties
dominate right-handed hitters.
As of 2018, when he arrived with
with the Cleveland Indians, it was clear how Oliver Pérez began to
throw the
slider more and depend less on his four-seam fastball. By becoming a
left-handed
specialist, he discovered that that power is what dominates lefties. He
recognized that he could prolong his career by making these changes.
“You have to study everything you
can face,” says Perez. “Right now we have all the statistics. The teams
give
you everything and you have to take advantage of it because that helps
when you
go up the hill. It makes sense: They told me that the percentage of
being hit
by the slider is lower than if I throw fastballs. That's why I took it.
All of
us, pitchers and hitters, have a lot of information and we have to
study the
situations that I face.
The Fastball
Pitcher
In 2012, Pérez began throwing his
fastball at the highest vertical launch point of his career. To put it
in
simpler terms: he stopped bending over – his knee injury gone now - and
straightened his back. Those mechanics were used until 2017. That year,
he
lowered the angle of his left arm to make things uncomfortable while
facing
lefties.
Beyond the advanced statistics, his
own experience leads him to make other types of adjustments that he
invents.
Pérez fervently believes that both
his fastball and the slider can be varied if, for example, before
throwing home
he pauses, shorter or longer, depending on who he is facing or, on the
contrary, if he throws fast he sometimes lifts his leg up or down. He
says he's
reading hitters and wants to break their rhythm.
One day, in a game in Culiacán, he
had to face a player who hit foul balls 13 times. Annoyed at being
unable to
get him out with a 94 MPH fastball, Perez lifted his right leg and
suspended it
in the air for three seconds and struck the hitter out. He improvised
on that
occurrence to see if that way he could dominate his rival.
“I want them to not get into the
rhythm if they are waiting for the fastball,” explains Perez. “I take
away
their strength and I break their timing. I always think about how to
decrease
the possibility of giving up solid contact. Little by little I was
inventing
it. Sometimes a hitter gives you 10 fouls and you have to improvise
those
things.”
Perez only needs to play and win in
a World Series to go debt-free to baseball. He has spent every fall of
his
career watching these games on television. He doesn't want to retire
without
the delight of having a championship ring, hopping on the field while
colored
paper rains down on him and dousing himself with champagne in the
dressing
room.
“Something I would like is to be the
oldest player in the major leagues,” Perez says. “When I came up in
2002, I was
the youngest in the entire league. I want to be there when a player
born in
2002 makes his debut.”
Ahead of Pérez, who turned 39 on
August 15, the player with the most campaigns in the Major Leagues in
2020 is
the Dominican Albert Pujols. At 40, Pujols is completing his 20th
season. The
Los Angeles Angels' first baseman made his debut in April 2001 with the
St.
Louis Cardinals. Perez admits that every season is a little tougher
than the
one before:
“We go year by year. I try to take better care of myself and eat healthier because if I have extra weight, my knees, ankles, and back hurt. Now I think about reaching season 20. Who knows if in 2021 I will have a contract? There is no other Mexican in any sport who has been active for so many years although when I wake up, everything hurts."
