How difficult is it to find a catcher? All you have to do is look to the Royals to see how much a good, young catcher is valued, and how difficult it is to find a replacement.Earlier this month, the team signed 21-year-old Salvador Perez to a five-year deal (with team options for three more) after he appeared in just 39 games on the big-league level. It was a solid plan, Perez is, by all accounts, the team's catcher of the future and locking him in early at a reasonable rate could help the team long-term.
That seemed to be all well and good -- especially paired with veteran Brayan Pena -- until Perez suffered torn cartilage in Perez's left knee. He will undergo an operation in Los Angeles on Friday. The team's other catcher on the 40-man roster besides Perez and Pena, Manny Pina, also suffered meniscus tear in his knee. He had surgery on Feb. 27 is out indefinitely. Meanwhile, the team is looking for a stop-gap measure and the pickings appear slim.
Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star offers four possible replacements -- free agent Ivan Rodriguez (40), Arizona's Craig Tatum (29), Cincinnati's Corky Miller (35) and Colorado's Wil Nieves (34).
Those four seem to fit into what manager Ned Yost, a former catcher himself, is looking for in a replacement.
"There's not another Sal out there that you can get," Yost told reporters. "There's just not. The next-best thing is probably some semblance of a catch-and-throw guy who can hit a little bit, but that guy is going to cost you a young prospect. We don't want to do that.
"So you either get a guy who can hit like a son-of-a-gun and can't catch, or a guy who can catch like a son-of-a-gun who you hope can at least be a good situational-type hitter who mixes in a few hits. I'd rather go that route."
The team has just two other catchers in addition to Pena in camp in Cody Clark and Max Ramirez. Neither are on the 40-man roster and have limited big-league experience. Ramirez, 27, has played in 45 big-league games for the Rangers, while Clark, 30, has never played in a big-league game. Clark is considered a better defensive catcher, while Ramirez is more of an offensive catcher.
"If any organization were to lose two catchers, they're going to be in the same boat," Royals GM Dayton Moore told Dutton.
