The Braves and left-hander Martín Pérez have agreed to a minor league deal, reports Aram Leighton of Just Baseball. The Octagon client will presumably be in major league camp in spring training.
Pérez, 35 in April, is coming off a mostly lost season due to injury. He signed a one-year, $5MM pact with the White Sox to serve as a veteran innings eater on the rebuilding club. That didn’t work out as the southpaw was on the injured list by mid-April for inflammation in his throwing elbow. Shortly thereafter, he was diagnosed with a flexor strain and it was questionable whether he would make it back from the IL.
The veteran did eventually come back in August but landed back on the IL in September due to a shoulder strain. Around the IL stints, he gave the White Sox 56 innings with a 3.54 earned run average, 19.3% strikeout rate, 9.6% walk rate and 39% ground ball rate.
For most of his career, Pérez has been a finesse lefty. His fastball has never averaged more than 94.2 miles per hour and has usually been a tick or two below that. He was in the 91-92 mph range in 2023 and 2024. He dropped down below 90 in 2025 but the injuries may have played a part in that. He has a six-pitch mix with a four-seamer, sinker, cutter, slider, curveball and changeup.
He has mostly been able to provide passable results. In his 1,631 2/3 career innings, he has a 4.41 ERA despite striking out just 16.3% of batters faced. His 8.3% walk rate is around average and his 48.4% ground ball rate is a few ticks better than par. He managed to get his ERA down to 2.89 with the Rangers in 2022, and parlayed that into a $19.65MM qualifying offer for 2023, which he accepted. But that campaign looks like a clear outlier, as he was back in the 4.50 ERA range for the next two seasons.
More to come.
