Cleveland Indians closer, Chris Perez, made the news today, and it wasn't related to his pitching skills (Indians have today off). He called out Cleveland management and basically said they don't want to win and that the just acquire who they want instead of getting players that will help the team. Indians General Manager, Chris Antonetti, obviously completely disagreed with the statement and said so to the media. This was not the first time Perez made news for his mouth instead of his arm. In fact, this incident makes it a perfect handful of times that he's called someone out. He doesn't seem to care who he belittles either as he's gone from his own fans, to opposing hitters, to pitchers in general, to opposing fans, and then most recently to his bosses upstairs. This combination of fearlessness and recklessness could turn Perez into an enigma, which won't be good for future contracts.
Perez started his mean streak in May, when the Indians were sitting pretty in first place. Attendance, though, was if they were ten games out. This combined with him being booed one game for allowing one too many baserunners set off Perez and he called it a 'slap in the face to be in first place but last in attendance.' He went on to say that no one wants to play in front of 5,000 fans (at the pro level) and that people take notice of the poor attendance. He also made a snide remark about Carlos Beltran choosing to play for the Cards in front of 40,000 instead of Cleveland, inferring that the lack of fans makes the Indians unattractive to free agents. Team president, Mark Shapiro, tried to make sense of Perez's comments by saying that he feeds off his emotions and passion, and so he was only using his comments to fuel himself. Shapiro also said that behind all of the emotion Perez was simply saying, "Pay attention. Look what we've got here."
Perez's next incident came nine days after the first when he made a gesture to Kansas City Royals outfielder, Jarrod Dyson, after striking him out to end the game. The gesture was the 'you can't see me' sign, which is when you wave your hand in front of your face, made famous by WWE wrestler, John Cena. The gesture doesn't sound all that bad, but it angered Dyson who noticed it while looking at a replay minutes afterwards. Perez claims that the Royals players did not like recent comments he had made and that they were 'gunning for him,' especially Dyson. He said he got this info from fellow reliever, Tony Sipp, who is friends with Dyson. So Perez told his teammates that if he struck out Dyson he would do the 'you can't see me' gesture, and that's what he did. Afterwards, Perez was unapologetic and Dyson seemed to let him roll off him, acknowledging that it is just what Perez does.
The third time Chris Perez spoke out, it was a commotion not caused by him. He speaking on the use of pine tar and other substances pitchers could use to manipulate the ball. It came after Joel Peralta of the Tampa Bay Rays was caught with pine tar in his glove. He believes that pitchers on every team use pine tar or something similar to help improve their grip on the ball, but he was more concerned on how it was discover that Peralta was using pine tar. Peralta's former team was the Washington Nationals and so when manager Davey Johnson told the umps to inspect Peralta's glove he or someone else from the team knew they would find something. Perez said that he would never do such a thing and there isn't anything wrong with keeping that to yourself.
The fourth and most recent incident (prior to calling out management) for Perez was unleashing a profanity-laced tirade on an Oakland A's fan that was taunting him. Someone near the fan videoed the entire thing and put it on YouTube. Perez refused to apologize, however, because it was the same fan that had been heckling him for four years while he shagged fly balls during batting practice. Perez said he had finally had enough and exploded on the man. As for the video part of it, Perez acknowledged that he didn't know it was being taped and that it's not the greatest thing to be on the Internet. He referred to it as a learning experience and that the fan had 'got him.'
It's been awhile since we've seen an athlete continually make the news in the same season for things other than what he does on the field. Usually the more wild players make news during the offseason because there is no one telling you "Hey, don't do that." But Chris Perez seems unafraid of anyone in the league and won't hesitate to call someone out if they get on his bad side. If Perez truly does these things to pump himself, then it's working as he has 34 saves this season and owns more strikeouts than innings pitched. It'll be interesting to see if the Indians tell Perez to tone it down next season. The last time a team told a player to tone it down was the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL with receiver Chad Johnson. Johnson has not been the same player since he was forced to become more reserved and currently is a free agent.
I feel that the outspoken Perez would not be affected if he was told to keep his mouth shut. He would still be able to motivate himself through the screams and fist pumping he does after each save. Another reason he would be fine is that during his best year as a pro, 2010, he flew under the radar and still managed to put up an outstanding 1.71 earned run average to go along with 23 saves. Of course back then he was not known as the dominant closer he is today. So maybe he would be affected, or maybe he would just back down the people that tell him to shut up and continue to do his thing. Because at the end of the day, He is a dominant 26-year old closer who's not afraid of anyone.
References
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8343937/cleveland-indians-closer-chris-perez-critical-team-management
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7952199/chris-perez-calls-cleveland-indians-fans-support-team
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7984767/gesture-cleveland-indians-closer-chris-perez-angers-kansas-city-royals
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8086472/chris-perez-cleveland-indians-believes-pine-tar-use-widespread
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8287377/cleveland-indians-chris-perez-regret-incident-oakland-fan
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