Talent, Family Ties Keep Angel Prospect Perez on the Move

The Angels have taken one of their hot prospects and put him at the hot corner. Now Tony Perez’s son is playing Pete Rose’s position.

Eduardo Perez, the Angels’ first-round pick in the 1991 draft, was an outfielder in high school in Puerto Rico, learned to play first base at Florida State and is now a third baseman with the Angels’ double-A Midland team.

The Angels see an approaching need for a major league third baseman, with Gary Gaetti, 33, struggling through a second below-average season and little depth at the position in the minors.

Perez, who has an agreeable nature anyway, sees the opportunity and agreed to try playing third. He didn’t even start learning the position until the final week of Instructional League last fall.

“(The Angels) just thought I had the ability to play third,” said Perez, 22. “They asked me if I wanted to move. I just thought of it as another challenge.”

The move might have lowered Perez’s fielding percentage, but it hasn’t slowed his climb up the organization’s ladder. He started his professional career last season with Boise (Ida.), a short-season Class-A team. He batted .288 in 46 games, and started this season at Palm Springs, the Angels’ top Class-A team. At the minor league all-star break, the Angels promoted him to double A.

It is not that Perez, 6 feet 4 and 215 pounds, has mastered third, not by any means. After 54 games with Palm Springs, he had 16 errors. “Errors, what errors?” Perez says, feigning ignorance.

Still, he had a .314 average, with three home runs, eight doubles, four triples, 35 runs batted in and 14 stolen bases.

The Angels decided that ground balls are the same no matter what level of minor leaguer hits them and promoted him.

“We made a position change, and this being his first full season, it’s not a bad thought to think we had no right to move him to double A,” said Bill Bavasi, the Angels’ director of minor league operations. “I feel strongly about this, that the game is real similar defensively all the way up.

“Once the ball is in play, you can learn the same things all the way up. When the ball’s in play, the ball’s in play. We felt if he could handle the bat in Palm Springs and the Cal League, we could move him on.”

The adjustment to double A is just under way, and Perez is hitting .306 in nine games with two errors at Midland.

“It’s not bad at all,” Perez said of the promotion. “It’s nice to get away from the earthquakes.”

Moving to third has not been a cinch.

“It’s taking a lot of hard work,” Perez said, also giving credit for his success to his coaches. “The errors have helped me as far as experience, knowing how to approach the ball and attack the ball, and learning to know my runner. I learn from the errors. Now I know when I can take my time and who I have to charge up against.”

Making judgments on defensive performance based on minor league statistics can be tricky because of the affects of poor playing surfaces and haphazard scoring decisions. Bavasi watched Perez play five times as the Angels evaluated him before moving him up.

“To me, he looked like a guy with real good athletic ability learning how to play the position,” he said. “It’s real cliche to say, ‘Yeah, he has 16 errors but he gets to balls others don’t.’ I think that’s usually overblown.”

But in this case, he suggests, it might be true.

Athletic ability is one of the reasons the Angels are trying the position change, but they believe another factor might help Perez master the position.

“A lot of kids have this kid’s physical ability,” Bavasi said. “It’s nothing outlandish, but real good ability.

“He knows how to perform. He’s got that example of good breeding that you see written about so much. It really does mean something.”

When Perez was young, the sons of Cincinnati Reds players often cavorted in Riverfront Stadium. Perez and his brother, Victor, who played one year of minor league ball and now works for MCI in Cincinnati, were usually among them.

“Ken Griffey Jr., Pete Rose Jr., Lee May Jr., some of the kids were always in the clubhouse,” recalled Tony Perez, now a coach with the Reds.

Griffey Jr. is the same age as Eduardo, but he went straight from high school to professional baseball, and at 22, the Seattle outfielder already has started in two All-Star games.

“I think they learned a lot by being around big league players,” Tony Perez said. “Around the age of 10, 11, 12, 15, they would start asking the players questions and throwing with them. They picked up a lot.”

Eduardo Perez learned his outfield skills by shagging balls during batting practice.

“Herm Winningham, Eric Davis, they really helped a lot,” Tony Perez said. “They’d tell him tips about how to play.”

Eduardo was appreciative.

“All the players were great with me,” he said. “They took the time to notice if I was doing something wrong and would just mention it. I remember one time I was sitting around the locker room, and Eric Davis said, ‘Come on, let’s go to the batting cages. I’m going to throw to you in the cage; don’t hit off the machine.’

“My Dad would throw to me, too. Just a lot of people helped. I’d be out there almost every day.”

Now he’s out there himself, trying to follow in his father’s steps. By learning to play third, he is that much more versatile.

“He can already do two other things, now we are putting him at another position,” Bavasi said. “The timing might be real, real good.”

Perez might not be the only third-base experiment in the organization. The Angels are also considering moving triple-A shortstop Damion Easley to third during the fall Instructional League, now that Gary DiSarcina has a solid claim on the the major league shortstop job.

For Eduardo Perez, the experiment continues.

“This is another exciting part of the game,” he said. “It’s exciting because you never know what’s going to happen.”

His father sees it as a chance to move up more quickly.

“He likes to play baseball, it doesn’t make any difference where it is,” Tony Perez said.

“I got my career, now I want him to have his.”