Boy, this is bad news for fantasy owners, myself included. Star catcher for the Kansas City Royals, Salvador Perez, suffered a Grade 2 MCL tear while carrying luggage upstairs per reports from Royals writer, Jeffrey Flanagan. As Perez was returning home from Spring Training, he missed a step while walking upstairs. Thankfully for Perez and the Royals, Perez will not require any surgery but is still expected to be out four to six weeks. The Perez injury follows a few other injuries, most recently, Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija.
Salvador Perez Tears MCL
Salvy Perez slipped last night carrying his luggage and has MCL tear. Out 4-6 weeks.
— Jeffrey Flanagan (@FlannyMLB) March 28, 2018
Perez, 28, will be going on the disabled list after coming off a great spring in the Cactus League. He batted .350/.409/.900 with a 1.309 OPS. He raked six home runs and 11 RBI. For fantasy owners, Perez is projected to slug slash .258/.296/.460 with a .760 OPS. He’ll smash 23 home and 69 RBI per Baseball Reference. However, with Perez starting the season injured, we’ll see how close he gets to those stats.
With Perez going on the DL to start the season, manager Ned Yost will put Drew Butera behind the plate to start the season. Butera, 33, has spent eight seasons in the majors, seven seasons in the American League, three with the Minnesota Twins, one with the Los Angeles Angels, and three seasons with the Royals. He’s also spent time with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League. Butera got by this spring with a .250/.370/.333 slash line with a .703 OPS. He hit a one home run and collected seven RBI in Surprise, Arizona. He has a career .203/.258/.299 slash line with a .557 OPS. Butera has collected 16 career home runs and 90 RBI.
While the Royals are headed toward a rebuild, they still do have some pop in their line up with Perez on the shelf. They signed first basemen Lucas Duda in order to fill in the gap left by Hosmer, they also signed Jon Jay in to fill in for Lorenzo Cain, and they re-signed third basemen Mike Moustakas. The Royals will still miss the five-time All-Star who’s had a 20 home run seasons in the last three years. While rebuilding teams are more worried about the acquiring and developing young talent the Royals would still like to start 2018 off on the right foot.
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