No one deserves playoff baseball more than Salvador Perez

On a brisk October evening in 2010, Citizens Bank Park was bustling with anticipation and nervous energy. The back-to-back National League champions entered the seventh inning with one run against the Cincinnati Reds, facing rookie phenom Aroldis Chapman.

They gathered. Chase Utley forced Philly out of one out on a routine fielder's choice against Scott Rolen. Jimmy Rollins drove him and Jayson Werth into right field with a routine fly ball that Jay Bruce just wouldn't catch. It was one of four mistakes that evening. Cincinnati scored seven runs. Two of them were earned.

Carlos Ruiz drove in the final run of the inning on a fielder's choice, turning the Reds' 4-3 lead into a 6-4 Phillies lead. The crowd was still cheering when Mike Sweeney came out for the only postseason hit of his career.

The third captain in the Royals' 56-year history, Sweeney spent 13 seasons in Kansas City. He hit more than 20 home runs six times, batted over .300 five times, including .340 in 2002, and was an All-Star five times. On the Royals' all-time leaderboard, he ranks 1st in OPS, 1st in SLG, 2nd in AVG and 3rd in HR. He played on only one winning team, four 100-loss teams and eight 90-loss teams and never reached the postseason.

In his only at-bat of the season, he hit a single to left-center field, a moment that was far more important to me as a Royals fan in 2010 than it was to a Phillies fan. This was as close to a fairytale ending as Sweeney had imagined.

Salvador Perez, Kansas City's fourth captain, gets a much more fitting end. To be fair, he's already had moments that Sweeney and other great post-1985 royals could only dream of.

He secured Kansas City's first postseason victory in over two decades, the first playoff game for the Royals since 1985. He was named World Series MVP the next season. He is a nine-time All-Star, five-time Gold Glove winner, four-time Silver Slugger and World Series champion.

But before this season, that time was long behind him. While Salvy was the far superior hitter after 2017, averaging a 112 OPS+ and 26 home runs per season, compared to a 96 OPS+ and 20 home runs between 2013 and 2017, the team was far less successful.

So much so that Kansas City tried to trade him. Heading to a 106-loss season, their third 100-loss season since 2018, general manager JJ Piccolo asked Perez for permission to hold talks with the Texas Rangers after Jonah Heim was placed on the injured list four days before the trade deadline. Salvy said yes.

According to Picollo, when discussing a potential trade, Salvy asked, “How quickly do you think we can win?” For now, the first-year GM was telling his aging star that a lot of things had to go right.

Trade talks with the Rangers never progressed. The talks with the Marlins never progressed and Perez stuck with them. Of course, no one could have predicted what would happen next.

Former 2015 Royal Chris Young, the general manager at Texas, was more interested in bullpen help than catching help. So they continued working with Kansas City and eventually agreed to trade for the same backup player Mike Sweeney scored his only goal against after the season: Aroldis Chapman.

In return, the Royals got 17-year-old outfielder Roni Cabrera and pitcher Cole Ragans, who had undergone Tommy John surgery twice and had only 300 professional innings pitched. Ragans thrived in the second half, entering 2024 as Kansas City's Opening Day starter and hitting like an ace. He led the league in K/9 and finished second among American League pitchers in K% and fWAR.

In Kansas City's Game 1 Wild Card win over the Orioles, he hit a brilliant pitch, allowing no runs in six innings of work and striking out eight batters en route to his first career postseason win.

Salvy also recorded his first postseason hit since his leadoff single in the 12th inning in Game 5 of the 2015 World Series. Jarrod Dyson replaced him as a pinch runner and eventually scored the run that won the game and secured the championship.

Seth Lugo pitched less brilliantly than Ragans, but survived a bases-loaded, no-out jam in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series after stifling Baltimore in the first four innings. He ranked third in the AL in fWAR and was one of the many things that had to fall into place for Kansas City to compete.

As Picollo said, a lot had to go right to get Salvador Perez back to the postseason. A swap would have been easiest, but that's the end of the storybook. And no one in baseball deserves it more. He never complained. He never took a day off. Salvy played terrible baseball for nearly a decade and continued to perform at an All-Star level. And if he does set foot in Cooperstown one day, it will be for his production in the dark days.

We often experience heightened levels of emotion in the off-season. We saw that with Salvy yelling behind the plate as he approached Lucas Erceg after their Game 2 win. What makes Salvador Perez special is that the same brat came when he hit his walk-off grand slam in 2018, hitting a home run in front of fewer than 20,000 fans and increasing Kansas City's record to 51-96.

Salvy was always the same Salvy, on the summit and in the pit. And after nine years he is back in the ALDS.