Kansas City Royals Sign Salvador Perez to Five Year Extension

Salvador Perez said he wanted to be like George Brett and Alex Gordon, spending his career with the Kansas City Royals. Today, he took a step towards achieving that goal.

By now, everyone that follows baseball knows of the extremely team friendly contract that Salvador Perez and the Kansas City Royals had. Signed for $16.75 Million over the next four seasons, the Royals had what may have been the best bargain in the game. So, when Perez had mentioned wanting a new contract extension, the Royals could have bided their time and waited to see how he would age before agreeing to talk.

Instead, the Royals have done the opposite. Determined to keep the heart of their franchise happy and to reward him for his excellent work, the Royals and Perez have agreed to a five year extension worth $52.5 Million, beginning in 2017. In what may be a surprise for any contract signed by Dayton Moore, the Royals do not have any team options. This contract covers the options that the Royals had already, and purchases two years of free agency.

"Perez’s new money breaks down like this: $6M signing bonus, additional $4M in option years (total: $20.5M), $13M/year in 2020 and 2021.— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 1, 2016"

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This is not a move that the Royals may have needed to do immediately, given that players such as Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer and Wade Davis are set to enter free agency after the 2017 season. The Royals also held all of the leverage here, and could have played hardball with Perez in holding him to those option years, making him play them out while seeing if his knees and back would hold up under the heavy workload he has had.

Yet, even if this was not the typical baseball move, it was the right decision to make. While Gordon may well be the face of the franchise, the good natured Perez is the heartbeat, always smiling and having fun. His presence in the locker room has helped create that chemistry that the Royals have become known for, helping them to succeed far beyond the expected sum of their parts.

This extension also sends a very clear message to the rest of the team – the Royals are serious about keeping their core together. Keeping that core together is something that Hosmer mentioned when discussing his interest in a long term extension of his own, and extending Perez is a step in that direction.

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The Kansas City Royals have taken another step to keeping the core of their team intact over the long term. It may be that Salvador Perez is only the beginning.