There may be few people in baseball more prepared to explain Salvador Perez's dominance like Royals manager Mike Matheny. A catcher for the better part of his 13-year playing career, Matheny was never the hitter that Perez -- who currently has the 4th-most home runs in baseball at 31 years old -- was, but the Royals' manager knows just how impressive, and difficult, Perez's 2021 season has been so far. Talking on his weekly hit with 610's Fescoe In The Morning, Matheny broke it down:
"Yeah, he's always been able to hit," he said. "I would have had to approach him like Vladimir Guerrero -- anything the catcher can possibly catch, he's probably going to be able to find the barrel to. He can hit anything. So he's realizing that's who he is. He's going to be an aggressive hitter, he's going to hit balls out of the strike zone. He can still hit them hard. What he's done differently is incorporate his legs a little more.
"That can take some time. It takes a while to be able to trust what we call staying on you back side. A lot of times guys want to transfer so much weight, you'll even see it in slow pitch softball. They'll run into their swing. But the guys in our game that are able to maximize their strength maintain their back side and hit against their front side. And when they feel that and it clicks, you'll see less body movement forward. They get to that point where their strength is almost pushing down into the ground, that allows them to get the extension that Salvy's getting right now."
You can listen to Matheny's entire interview in the player below: