Perez is gravy for Biscuits

WW-P product is climbing Tampa Bay ranks

By: Justin Feil
   Fernando Perez always looks forward to a visit from his parents, with good reason.
   "Usually when they come, I’m getting hits all over the place," said Perez, an outfielder with the Tampa Bay Double-A affiliate Montgomery (Ala.) Biscuits. "But Double-A is tougher. It’s a little harder to get three- and four-hit games. If you’re a focal point of the offense, the other teams do whatever they can to neutralize you. You have to overcome that to become a better player."
   Perez insists he wasn’t trying any harder this week, but was relieved to deliver his first hit in four games in front of them in a 7-0 win over the Jacksonville Suns on Wednesday night.
   "I finally got a hit for them," Perez said. "We’ll see. I have to pull some more magic out of my hat."
   Perez’s parents, Fernando Sr. and Sira, always make it down from their West Windsor home for some spring training action, but this week they caught their first look at Perez in the minor leagues in two seasons. While he may not look much different, even from his days at The Peddie School and with the West Windsor-Plainsboro American Legion baseball team, Perez is vastly improved.
   "It probably doesn’t look like much," Perez said, "but this game makes you change according to the competition. I’ve gotten a lot better due to the competition I’m facing. I’ve become a lot more disciplined hitter. If you saw me play in high school, it looks the same, but I’m a lot more disciplined. I’m a lot more experienced. This is the only game where experience really, really means something. What LeBron (James of the Cleveland Cavaliers) does as a young guy, that doesn’t happen much in baseball.
   "I’ve become a lot more disciplined. I’ve seen more game situations. I have a lot more successful situations at my disposal."
   A lot. Perez is in his first season of Double-A baseball after successful stints in three different professional leagues since the Devil Rays drafted him in the seventh round after his junior season at Columbia University. He has gotten better at each stop, showing an ability to adjust to the higher level each time. After signing, he hit .232 for Hudson Valley of the New York-Penn League but showed his speed early with 24 steals in 28 attempts.
   In 2005, he was named the Most Valuable Player of the Southwest Michigan Devil Rays, the low Single-A affiliate of Tampa Bay, after hitting .289, stealing 58 bases, getting 151 hits, scoring 93 runs and even driving in 48 runs. In 2006, he was MVP of the Visalia Oaks of the California League, the Devil Rays’ high Single-A club, as he hit .303 with 33 stolen bases while walking 78 times. He led the minor leagues with 123 runs scored.
   He did all that with one big change. The right-hander learned to bat from the left side as well.
   "That was the toughest thing I’d ever done in any athletic thing," Perez said. "They’re all hurdles you have to get over. First, I had to learn how to hit good pitching. I never saw that until pro ball. I didn’t see much good pitching in high school and not much in college, not that was consistent. Then I was thrown into low-A and saw good pitching. It took a little while to master that. Once I had that, I threw it all away and learned to hit left-handed.
   "After that, for me to be at this point, and succeeding at it in AA, it’s good. It exceeds what was expected of me. I’m really happy with it. I still have a ways to go. There are still things I can’t do from left side I can do from right side. It makes me work a lot harder. I can go out and feel very, very comfortable from the right side and I can get a hit every time. I really have to work on that left-handed. I’m getting there and making big strides."
   Proving he could handle switch-hitting at Visalia was one thing, but Perez has continued to shine from both sides of the plate while at Montgomery, which plays in the Southern League.
   "That," he said, "was the big test."
   He missed May with a knee injury, but in 84 games he is batting .306, .310 from the right side and .305 from the left side. He has scored 66 runs and has 20 doubles while working 60 walks. Since the All-Star break, he is batting .347, including a .353 over his last 10 games.
   "With everything, you have to stay mindful of how you’re succeeding," Perez said. "If you stop succeeding, you have to figure out something new. Everything changes a little bit. In low-A, you have to learn how to hit the fastball away. In high-A, you have to be able to be ready for two pitches and be able to hit them. In Double-A, you have to be ready to have whatever your weakness is, exploited. If you have trouble hitting the fastball in, they figure it out in the first game and do it until you get it. In Double-A, teams are just a little more prepared. They spot weaknesses and try to go for it. All the teams are more talented, all the teams have better players."
   Perez is proving that he is one of the top prospects for the Devil Rays. He has continued to bloom since his Legion baseball days, and still hears from some of his old teammates from Peddie, WW-P and Columbia.
   "I talk to a lot of guys and they’re really supportive," he said. "They’re kind of vicariously living through me. It’s really, really tough to make it. You’ve either got it or not. It takes a lot of luck. If you get let into the club, you can stick around forever."
   Tampa Bay is hoping he will stick around for a while. They are expected to make him part of the 40-man major league roster at the end of the season to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. The Rule 5 draft allows major league teams to draft unprotected minor-league players, provided they put them on the major league roster the following season.
   "There are rumors out there," Perez said. "All you can do is play better so they have more of a case (to protect him). If you play well, good things will happen. I’m not so concerned about that. I’m certainly looking forward to finally being on a 40-man roster, but really all you can do up to that point is put together good years."
   Perez is happy to find himself doing just that. He ranks sixth in the Southern League in average, second in on-base percentage, fifth in steals, fifth in walks and seventh in runs, all despite playing just 83 games — 34 fewer than the league leader — due to his injury.
   "It’s where I wanted to be," he said. "I didn’t think I couldn’t do what I’m doing. There’s still time. August is a difficult month. Everybody feels it’s August. Most people have played over 100 games. In my case, I play every single day. You really feel August. It’s been 100 degrees every day for two weeks. We don’t even really practice before games. Every time I’ve lasted five or six pitches, I’ve walked. The pitchers can’t repeat that many strikes. It comes down to desire. And you want to save your best for last.
   "Last year, I managed to do that out in California. We’re all trying to be consistent. You have to plug away. The better players in these leagues, the guys up in the top 10, they’ll go 10 games and hit .500. That’s important, but what I find is really, really important in trying to put together a good season is to be effective when you don’t have your best stuff, when you show up and you’re tired before you’ve even played the game. You have to really do your best to not give up at bats and not give up errors. That’s the making of a professional. That’s what we’re after."
   Even though he is only a Double-A outfielder for a major league organization with good young outfielders, he is closer to making his big-league dream a reality than ever. The Devil Rays management sent down the order for Perez to try to switch hit, to make him more valuable when he does climb to the major league level. He has taken that up, and continues to work on it. He honed his left-handed hitting in the Arizona Fall League and hopes to play in Venezuela during this offseason to continue to fine tune his skills.
   "So when I show up to spring training, I can legitimately compete for a job," Perez said. "So I can make a good impression and hopefully be used by the major league club.
   "I’m not going to be at home much," he added. "I’ll be there in September a little bit, when I’ll be between New York City and at home with my folks."
   Fernando Sr. and Sira will be happy to see his return, and stand to be even happier on their next trip to see him play in a regular-season game. It just might come at the major league level.
   "I just feel really lucky to still run around and play a game," Perez said. "I think it really helps to kind of pry a little energy on those days I need it."