Tigers regain lost catching depth by signing nomadic former Blue Jays top prospect

The Tigers' Dillon Dingler-Jake Rogers catching duo might be one of the most solid in baseball. Dingler is the best catcher in the game right now; Rogers ... isn't, but he's beloved by fans and actually has come up in some big moments for Detroit this season. He even has 0.1 bWAR thanks to 2 1/3 scoreless innings pitched in blowouts.

Detroit has a distinct lack of catching depth, though. They have Eduardo Valencia, who enjoyed his cup of coffee while Dingler was going through an injury scare, but longtime farmhand Eliezer Alfonzo elected free agency in the offseason and is now in the majors with the Dodgers, and Tomás Nido was released by the organization on Tuesday, per Emily Waldon of Baseball America.

The Tigers were quick to make up for the lost depth. On Wednesday, they signed veteran farmhand Carlos Pérez to a minor league deal.

Pérez, 35, has 278 games worth of major league experience between 2015 and 2023, but he didn't appear in the majors at all from 2019 through 2022. His last major league stint was with the Athletics in 2023, when he hit .226 with a .650 OPS in 66 games. He was signed as an international free agent by the Blue Jays in 2008 and was even a top-10 prospect in 2011 and 2012.

Nido had just come off of the IL when he was released by the organization. He was hitting .236 with a .685 OPS in Toledo before then, and hit .343 with a .704 OPS during his 11-game stint in Detroit last year.

Tigers sign veteran minor league catcher Carlos Pérez after releasing Tomás Nido

The Blue Jays traded Pérez to the Astros in 2012 as part of a massive swap that included JA Happ and Joe Musgrove, then dealt to the Angels in 2014. He finally made his major league debut in 2015 and hit a walk-off home run. He got the majority of his MLB playing time with the Angels between 2015 and 2016 but was eventually DFA'ed in 2018 to make room for none other than Shohei Ohtani.

He's bounced around to the Braves, Rangers, Orioles, A's, Rockies, A's again, Cubs, Astros again, and El Águila de Veracruz of the Mexican League before finally landing with the Tigers. He's a career .275/.349/.497 hitter in Triple-A, and .218/.265/.327 in the majors.

The likelihood that Pérez emerges as some kind of folk hero if one of either Dingler or Rogers went down is small, but it's always good to have some reassurance down in Toledo that the Tigers could call on at a moment's notice. Although fans might prefer to see Valencia get another shot, it's always good to have a veteran.

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