Wenceel Perez has adapted to Triple-A just fine.

Colt Keith. Justice Bigbie. Justyn Henry-Malloy. Three names you often see on social media and, lately, rising up on prospect lists throughout the season. Makes total sense, their performances have merited the attention. But one name continues to plug along in the background that Tigers fans may be familiar with in Wenceel Perez, who has gone through another year of changes.

If that story sounds familiar, you may recall Perez was at West Michigan in 2021 when Spencer Torkelson and Dillon Dingler were there and grabbing the storylines. He was still finding his way, and then last year, like Parker Meadows at West Michigan, a switch flipped. After hitting .307/.374/.540 with an OPS of .914 after his promotion to Erie, he was shutdown in mid-August due to a back injury. It was serious enough that he stuck around in Lakeland, getting therapy on it every day.

After hitting .267/.372/.373 in his first 41 games in Erie, there was one thing that seem different. The power. After having ISO numbers of .244 and .233 in 2022, the power dipped. But check out Perez’s fly ball rate from last year to this year in Double-A highlighted below.

He continues to try to hit for loft, but the home runs and power were not there. Maybe it was the recovering of the back? A factor of unknown elements but upon further review, Perez has picked it up, big time. Here’s a look at his numbers since July 14th, spanning 37 games.

Keith during that same stretch played 37 while Malloy has played 33. So the power is creeping back in there while being the best hitter among the Mud Hens over the last month. All while learning a new position this season, the outfield. So far, between Erie and Toledo, he has seen 35 games between center and left field. While he continues to struggle with sometimes making the simple play at second, the other part of his game that has been a struggle is his splits at the plate while switch hitting.

2022: 

vs RHP as LHB: .287/.365/.549 12 HR 19 2B 10 3B 286AB

vs LHP as RHB: .333/.390/.478 2 HR 4 2B 69AB

2023:

vs RHP as LHB: .313/.416/.482 9 HR 20 2B 3 3B 313AB

vs LHP as RHB: .202/.248/.275   HR 4 2B 2 3B 101 AB

However, for the layout of Comerica Park, his ability to hit for more power on the left side would be a great benefit, where he could hit into the right-center alley.  The data is showing he is at 40.2% hard hit rate, which is above the International League average of 37%. Broken down in our HIM or IMH chart (Hardhit, ISO, Metric, still finalizing a name) in which a metric that would combine hard hit rate and actual power production for a player in the same sort of scale as wRC+ where 100 is average,

How does HIM pertain to Wenceel Perez? What is HIM?

Our data guy Jerry Mackinem did was take players hard hit rate divided by the league average, and then he took their ISO and also divided it by the league average, multiplied the two together and then multiplied it by 100.  We are testing it out, but the numbers across the board came out with some impressive results.

For example, Parker Meadows was above league average on the following: Overall, groundball, line drive, and flyball.  Perez fared well on hitting line drives, hitting at a 58% clip on line drives. (League average 52%) We are still working on the kinks of this metric, but it was not done just to point out how well Wenceel is doing, it is an interesting metric since power is the name of the game at the next level.

With those numbers, Wenceel Perez may give Scott Harris another player to think about. But, the question becomes can he continue to make himself into a better and steady defender? Are the overthrows at second a cause of just overthinking? That he must conquer to be considered for a September call-up, but the bat is making his case strong.

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