Rangers Ace Martin Perez on Manager Bruce Bochy: 'Old School and That's What I Like'
Texas Rangers pitcher Martín Pérez has a new contract and a new boss for 2023 in manager Bruce Bochy.
Pérez accepted the Rangers’ qualifying offer of $19.65 million before Wednesday’s deadline. In fact, he said he told the Rangers his intention of returning a few days before the deadline, but after Texas traded for veteran starter Jake Odorizzi from Atlanta.
That means Pérez will play for a fifth manager with the Rangers. His career started under Ron Washington when he broke into the Majors a decade ago, and continued under Washington’s replacement Jeff Banister.
In 2022, Pérez started the season under Chris Woodward and ended it under interim manager Tony Beasley.
Now, it’s Bochy, a three-time world champion with the San Francisco Giants.
Pérez said he had already spoken to Bochy even before he signed the one-year qualifying offer. Bochy is his kind of manager.
“Good guy and old school, and that’s what I like,” Pérez said. “For me, the good thing is you have to communicate, you’re going to (have to) communicate with us. If he does that the whole year then it’s going to be easy for us to make the adjustment and go out and compete every night.”
Pérez is coming off the best season of his career, as he went 12-8 with a 2.89 ERA, the latter among the best in the American League. He threw 196 1/3 innings, just two innings off his career high. He had a career-high 169 strikeouts. He also made the All-Star team for the first time.
He did all of that on a one-year, $4 million salary, easily the Rangers’ best bargain of 2022. Pérez gets a $15 million raise and the qualifying offer amount to his highest salary in a single year.
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