Franklin Pérez


Franklin Eduardo Pérez Montoya is a Venezuelan professional baseball pitcher in the Detroit Tigers organization.

Career

Pérez signed with the Houston Astros as an international free agent in July 2014. He made his professional debut in 2015 with the Dominican Summer League Astros and was promoted to the Gulf Coast Astros later that season. He posted a combined 1-4 record and 4.50 ERA in 50 innings pitched between both teams. He pitched 2016 with the Quad Cities River Bandits where he went 3-3 with a 2.84 ERA in 66.2 innings. He began 2017 with the Buies Creek Astros and after pitching to a 4-2 record and 2.98 ERA was promoted to the Corpus Christi Hooks in July where he posted a 3.09 ERA in 32 innings. On August 31, 2017, the Astros traded Pérez to the Detroit Tigers along with Jake Rogers and Daz Cameron for Justin Verlander. The Tigers assigned him to the Erie SeaWolves but he did not play for them in 2017.
Prior to the 2018 season, he was rated as the Tigers top prospect and one of the top prospects in the minors overall. Due to a recurrence of a lat injury he suffered in 2017, Perez played in just seven games between the Gulf Coast Tigers and the Lakeland Flying Tigers in 2018. In those seven games, he went 0-2 with a 6.52 ERA in 19 innings. The Tigers added him to their 40-man roster after the 2018 season. Perez appeared in just two games for Lakeland in 2019 due to chronic shoulder injuries.