{"id":162656,"date":"2019-01-21T15:11:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T21:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=162656"},"modified":"2019-01-22T09:04:58","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T15:04:58","slug":"twin-sign-martin-perez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=162656","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota Twins sign Martin Perez"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-162657\" src=\"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/perezmartin.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"68\" height=\"102\" \/>MINNEAPOLIS\u00a0 (MLB.com)\u00a0 &#8212; The Twins have agreed to a one-year contract with left-handed pitcher <a href=\"http:\/\/m.mlb.com\/player\/527048\/martin-perez\" data-player-link=\"527048\">Martin Perez<\/a>, which includes a club option for a second season, a source confirmed to MLB.com&#8217;s Jon Paul Morosi. The club has not confirmed the deal.<\/p>\n<p>(Photo by Sean M. Haffey\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>The Twins have been looking to build their pitching depth this offseason, and Perez could bring a more experienced option to the competition for the unclaimed fifth spot in the Twins&#8217; rotation with several young pitchers, including <a href=\"http:\/\/m.mlb.com\/player\/622864\/fernando-romero\" data-player-link=\"622864\">Fernando Romero<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/m.mlb.com\/player\/606167\/adalberto-mejia\" data-player-link=\"606167\">Adalberto Mejia<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/m.mlb.com\/player\/640464\/kohl-stewart\" data-player-link=\"640464\">Kohl Stewart<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/m.mlb.com\/player\/624427\/stephen-gonsalves\" data-player-link=\"624427\">Stephen Gonsalves<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/m.mlb.com\/player\/608328\/chase-de-jong\" data-player-link=\"608328\">Chase De Jong<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old Perez spent the first seven seasons of his career with the Rangers and had a 2-7 record with a career-worst 6.22 ERA and 1.78 WHIP in 85 1\/3 innings in 2018. Though he had been used almost exclusively as a starter prior to last season, he was moved primarily to the bullpen in August after recording a 6.95 ERA through his first 13 starts.<\/p>\n<p>Perez became a free agent after the Rangers did not exercise a $7.5 million club option for 2019. Though he went 10-6 with a 3.62 ERA in 2013 and finished sixth in American League Rookie of the Year Award voting, he hasn&#8217;t recorded an ERA below 4.00 since then and has a career 4.63 ERA while calling the hitter-friendly Globe Life Park his home park for his entire career.<\/p>\n<p>The southpaw has always pitched to contact, as he&#8217;s never posted a strikeout rate higher than 16.9 percent at the Major League level and has eclipsed 100 strikeouts in a season only twice in his career. He became increasingly reliant on his sinker in 2018, which he threw more than 50 percent of the time, per <a href=\"http:\/\/m.mlb.com\/video\/topic\/73955164\">Statcast\u2122<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MINNEAPOLIS\u00a0 (MLB.com)\u00a0 &#8212; The Twins have agreed to a one-year contract with left-handed pitcher Martin Perez, which includes a club option for a second season, a source confirmed to MLB.com&#8217;s Jon Paul Morosi. The club has not confirmed the deal. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey\/Getty Images) The Twins have been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162658,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162656"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162715,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162656\/revisions\/162715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/162658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}