2x Gold Glover & World Series-Winning Catcher Announces Retirement

March 27, 2026 , ,
Cleveland Indians catcher Roberto Perez hits the ball during 2024 game.

Roberto Perez has announced his retirement from baseball. 

The 37-year-old catcher spent a decade in the major leagues, eight of those seasons with the Cleveland Indians (2014-21), before their name change in November of 2021, and leaves the game as one of the better defensive catchers of his generation. 

He hadn't appeared in the majors since 2023 with the San Francisco Giants, but had kept playing in the Puerto Rican Winter League and logged 16 games in the Mexican League last year.

Roberto Perez Finishes With Two Gold Gloves and a World Series Moment

Perez was a 33rd-round pick out of the 2008 draft who made his big league debut in 2014 and promptly hit a home run in his first game. 

He spent most of his Cleveland tenure as a reliable backup, tag-teaming the position with Yan Gomes and later Austin Hedges, but there were two seasons where he stepped into a larger role and delivered. 

In 2019, his best offensive season, Perez hit .239 with 24 home runs, 63 RBI, and put together one of the finest defensive seasons any catcher has had in recent memory, recording 31 Defensive Runs Saved and a 20 Fielding Run Value that earned him his first Gold Glove. 

He went back-to-back in the shortened 2020 season, winning the award again despite a rough offensive year.

And then there was Game 1 of the 2016 World Series, when Perez went deep twice against the Chicago Cubs in what remains one of the more surprising individual performances in recent postseason memory. Cleveland still lost that series in seven games, but Perez gave the city something to hold onto. 

Roberto Perez Retires

The offensive numbers, a .207 career average with 55 home runs and 193 RBI over 516 games, were never the point with Perez. 

Teams kept him around because of what he did behind the plate and in the clubhouse, and because his .995 lifetime fielding percentage is among the best in baseball history at the position. 

The injuries caught up with him toward the end, a hamstring in Pittsburgh in 2022, a rotator cuff strain in San Francisco in 2023, but he kept trying, signing a minor league deal with Boston the following winter and appearing in spring training before eventually transitioning to winter ball. 

"I leave the game with nothing but respect for everything it has given me," he wrote. Hard to argue with that. 

Photo Credit: Denny Medley-Imagn Images

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