It is always a sad day when a player starts showing signs of decline, and it hurts even more when it is a player many people like. Salvador Perez showed many signs of decline in 2026, and while the writing may be closer to being on the wall, he showed signs of life in the second half of 2026. With a solid second half of the season, it isn't unrealistic to say "Salvy" still has something left in the tank.
Overall, 2026 was the worst offensive season for Salvy as he slashed .229/.274/.383 for an OPS of .656 and a wRC+ of 77. Every number in that slash line is tied for a career low or is his career low, and that wRC+ is his career low. Despite all of that, let's dive into Salvy's profile to explain how he can still produce at the major league level.
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A Role Switch Helped Salvy Produce
Salvy has played a ton of innings behind the plate, specifically 11,967.2 innings of catching, and the Royals decided at the end of June to change his role from primary catcher to a 1B/DH. From June 25 onward, Salvy played catcher in 7 games and only played 1B in 19 games, meaning he became the primary DH.
From that date, Salvy began to turn his play around as he was around league average at the plate with 99 wRC+. In that stretch, his slash line was .256/.302/.432 for an OPS of .734, and even with a down August, he showed he can still swing it. The role change gave Salvy a new lease on his major league life, and with that he continued to rack up accolades, such as taking the Royals All-Time HR record
from George Brett.
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While there were positives, it is hard to overlook to negatives in the first half of the season.
Nightmare First Half of the Year
This is where most of Salvy put together his worst stretch of play in his career, and it did a ton of damage to his perceived value and to the Royals. From the start of the year to June 25, he had a wRC+ of 54 and a ton of his positive value came from when he hit for power. The issue is that he didn't hit for a lot of power and couldn't be valuable in another way at the plate. He had 10 HRs in this stretch with nine doubles and 30 RBIs as he was still able to produce in the clutch, but was a net negative everywhere else.
June was the final straw for Salvy as the whole month was rough until the role change. As a whole, his June saw him have a wRC+ of 20 and struggle with everything at the plate. To add salt to the wound, his defense was also continuing to decline as his blocking got worse and his arm declined slightly (still was good throwing out runners though, threw out 35% of runners stealing).
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The most valuable thing he did in the first half was being one of the best ABS challengers in the league as he went 46 for 65 as a catcher challenging close pitches. Despite the sluggish start, Salvy still produced an interesting Baseball Savant profile that showed he still has gas left in the tank.
Surface Stats are slightly Misleading for Salvy
While Salvy had a tale of two halves at the plate, he still finished up with a profile that could hold up for 2027. His 2026 profile is similar to his 2025 profile, where the expected numbers were high for him, but the final results didn't match them. It was a similar tale for 2026, as he was expected to have a .250 average, .439 slugging, and a .316 wOBA. In actuality, he had a .229 average, .383 slugging, and .285 wOBA.
2025 was similar, but to a more extreme degree, as he was expected to have a season on par with his 2021 (the expected numbers line up for that season as well). Now, expected stats aren't the telltale sign of 'Oh, this player underperformed his expected numbers; therefore, he got unlucky.' The results are the results, but Salvy still showed with his bat that he can still produce results.
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As a whole, Salvy had a barrel rate of 10.7%, a 42.7% hard-hit rate, a 35.3% launch angle sweet spot, and limited Ks at a 19.0% rate. All of those numbers are above average rates for batters. From June 26 onwards, he had an 11.5% barrel rate, a 44.5% hard-hit rate, a 39.6% launch angle sweet spot, and a 18.9% K-rate.
His second half did a lot of heavy lifting for the abysmal first half in terms of the expected numbers. A case in point is his xwOBA being .352 from June 26 onward, compared to a .302 xwOBA at the start of the season. The second half showed that he can still swing the bat well in his new role.
Conclusion
2026 was a terrible overall season for Salvy, which saw him continue to rack up accolades and climb up the all-time catcher lists, but the second half of the season showed that he can rebound in a new role in 2027. The Royals probably won't be looking for a DH in free agency, so his role should be solidified in 2027 and if he can continue to bat like he did from June 26th onward, he can be a net positive for the Royals in the lineup.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/royals/onsi as Salvador Perez is on the Decline, but the second half of 2026 shows he still has Gas left in the Tank
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