Cionel Perez

[waroriole]

He might need to find that pothole in the parking lot soon. Seems like he needs a reset. 

[interloper]

I think Cio will figure it out soon.

His FIP is 3.21 and his H/9 is an astronomically ridiculous 18.7, more than double his career rate. BABIP is .529! His walk rate is 5.2 which is elevated but not all that much higher than his career 4.7.

To me it just looks like he doesn't have good feel right now. I think you stay the course and put him in low leverage situations for as long as you can. There is no way he slips to AAA, so the best option is to try and hide him as best you can until he rights the ship or you're forced to finally make a move. 

Edited April 24, 2023 by interloper

[SteveA]

3 hours ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

No way the O's give up on him.  He should probably be pitched in low leverage situations though until he figures things out.

Until we start hitting, we have very few low leverage situations.   

[interloper]

Just imagine if he gets it together and Givens/Tate come back healthy and effective. Almost the entire bullpen would be a "back end" bullpen. 

Bautista
Baker
Perez
Cano
Tate
Givens

And then guys who are also pitching great like Coulombe and Baumann. 

Edited April 24, 2023 by interloper

[DirtyBird]

55 minutes ago, interloper said:

BABIP is .529

That's because he is getting hit harder, and more often. His XBA is at .320 vs .237 last season.

[interloper]

3 minutes ago, DirtyBird said:

That's because he is getting hit harder, and more often. His XBA is at .320 vs .237 last season.

Sure, he's not totally off the hook for the blame. There are 3 things happening:

1. He's battling his command and leaving balls in the middle of the plate.
2. We have played piss poor defense behind him so far.
3. He's been unlucky.

So, if he can find a little more luck and defense while he irons out his command, we could start seeing some improvement. He's obviously not ONLY unlucky because like you said the quality of contact is not favorable to success. But there's room to believe improvement is coming. 

[SilverRocket]

Looking at Statcast, his fastball is getting hit around and has lost some ride compared to last year. His location has also generally been worse, and he's throwing more balls in the zone compared to last year.

One striking thing about his repertoire this year is what's listed as a curveball being thrown 21% of the time (same as his slider), compared to 2% last year. The curve isn't getting great results this year. It has similar velocity to his slider, more vertical break and less horizontal break. Is this a distinct new pitch or just a variation of his slider? I found this tweet:

His slider is actually doing well, but the curve is getting hit around a bit. He's gone from around 60-40 fastball-slider to 60-20-20 fastball-slider-curve. What's the story behind this pitch? Last year's curveball was effective but only in a small sample as he didn't use it until September.

[DirtyBird]

1 hour ago, interloper said:

But there's room to believe improvement is coming. 

Only because he couldn't be much worse right now. The only positive for him is that he hasn't allowed any HR's yet.

[LA2]

1 hour ago, DirtyBird said:

Only because he couldn't be much worse right now. The only positive for him is that he hasn't allowed any HR's yet.

Let that not be a jinx

[interloper]

2 hours ago, DirtyBird said:

Only because he couldn't be much worse right now. The only positive for him is that he hasn't allowed any HR's yet.

Oh, it could be MUCH worse than a 5.19 ERA. Have you been following the Orioles long?  

[sportsfan8703]

I haven’t given up on Perez because that dude was nails all last season. He just needs to find his command. They lefty lefty walks have been worrisome. 

[Tony-OH]

On 4/24/2023 at 12:27 PM, SilverRocket said:

Looking at Statcast, his fastball is getting hit around and has lost some ride compared to last year. His location has also generally been worse, and he's throwing more balls in the zone compared to last year.

One striking thing about his repertoire this year is what's listed as a curveball being thrown 21% of the time (same as his slider), compared to 2% last year. The curve isn't getting great results this year. It has similar velocity to his slider, more vertical break and less horizontal break. Is this a distinct new pitch or just a variation of his slider? I found this tweet:

His slider is actually doing well, but the curve is getting hit around a bit. He's gone from around 60-40 fastball-slider to 60-20-20 fastball-slider-curve. What's the story behind this pitch? Last year's curveball was effective but only in a small sample as he didn't use it until September.

Nice post.

I do wonder if he's throwing a new pitch or just finding it difficult to repeat his slider this year. He's a guy that may need reset if he can't get it together soon, especially with Tate rehabbing and may need to be added to the roster soon. A pothole could be in his future.

[interloper]

The fastball definitely looks flatter and even though it's the same velocity, it just isn't doing anything cool up there. No late life if what it looks like to me. Less success up in the zone. 

They're going to have a really tough decision with Perez. Because if they DFA him, it's of course very possible that Cano turns into a pumpkin. Or Tate regresses. Or Givens just isn't that effective or re-injures the knee. And suddenly the wealth of setup relievers looks thin in the blink of an eye. There's just a lot of risk to DFAing him, but at the same time it's not going to get any easier to hide him. 

[Moose Milligan]

Starting to wonder if last year was a one-year-wonder type of performance from him.  Certainly wasn't that good before he got here and he hasn't been good this year. 2022 is starting to look like an outlier for him. 

I don't know how many more chances he's going to get as Tate and Givens are getting closer to coming back but he's not inspiring confidence right now.  I'm sure Holt and the rest are doing what they can to try to get him back to last year's levels but it's not always easy.

[interloper]

I wonder if a trade is a possibility. To a rebuilding team looking to give opportunities to big arms. But putting him on the block probably indicates to everyone that he's waiver-bound, so it would take someone who really wants him. 

He's got a couple more weeks I think. There's no telling how the Tate and Givens rehabs will go.