Oliver Perez Signs Minor League Contract With Mariners

Okay, so this is a scary thing. But, it’s a scary thing that we can tackle together. No one has to do it alone. It’s not like trying to sit through an Adrien Brody movie, or more specifically Splice (boy, the guy who picks movies for us is fired!), where he plays a gentle but flawed character who always seems like he wants to do the right thing but does something stupid. Hey and we’re back to Oliver Perez!

Seriously though, I don’t expect Ollie to crack the starting rotation. At this point the rotation candidates are already thick and I’m sure that we’ll hear some line from Jack Zduriencik about “experience” and blah, blah, blah. The word “compititor” will be mentioned more than once.

He doesn’t deserve to be the in the rotation and I don’t see him being of any value. That said he does have a nice split L vs L split over the course of his career and he could be someone whose control issues are masked by the limited innings out of the bullpen.

His loss of velocity of the last couple of years and his chronic health problems don’t point towards anything positive. The added thought that George Sherrill is already signed to a major league deal further lowers his chances. That said, there isn’t anything wrong with depth. 

An important note on Minor League free-agents:

"III-a-3. Article XX(B) free agents signing minor league contracts who are not added to the Opening Day roster or unconditionally released 5 days prior to Opening Day shall receive an additional $100,000 retention bonus and the right to opt out on June 1."

That’s per the new CBA signed into affect in this past November and it changes the way minor league free-agents will be used. So while Perez could be stashed in AAA as depth, due to the amount of money he could be owed, it’s doubtful. This is more than likely just a look to see if he has what he did back 6 years ago.

I sure hope it’s nothing more.