Indians' Roberto Perez: Spends January training with Yadier Molina
Perez spent most of January training with Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, an eight-time Gold Glove Award winner, on the mental aspects of catching, Zack Meisel of Cleveland.com reports.
Perez will compete with Yan Gomes for playing time in 2017. With the latter having dealt with lingering shoulder issues, strong defense could be Perez's path to more playing time. Perez has dealt with his own health problems though, as a broken thumb cost the 28-year-old nearly half the 2016 campaign. The battle for starting catcher duties will be one to monitor this spring, as the draft value of both Perez and Gomes is strongly tied to the fight. Barring injury, the most likely scenario is that the pair breaks camp in some sort of platoon, limiting both of their stocks to begin 2017.
