News: Oliver Perez will be Working Hard
Ken Davidoff of Newsday says Oliver Perez is in Arizona at the Athletes Performance Institute, “and he’ll receive visitors this winter in Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen and trainer Ray Ramirez.”
According to MLB.com, “The Athletes Performance Institute is a high-tech fitness boot camp for professionals,” with 
a focus on nutrition, metabolic testing, cardiovascular work, drills and media training.
In recent years, the Institute has done work with Curt Schilling, Justin Morneau, Carl Crawford, Kevin Youklis and Dustin Pedroia, among others.
…i like when i hear stories about players like ollie making this type of additional effort in the off-season… of course, i’m always skeptical… but, last off season, i read and heard a lot about how hard Luis Castillo had been working, at the team’s facility in the Dominican Republic, and, sure enough, he played in 142 games and hit .302… i would love to see a similar turn-around for perez, who obviously has the talent to be a tremendous pitcher… he just has no idea how to harness it… whether that is because of physical or mental instability, i have no idea, but hopefully the Athletes Performance Institute can figure it out…
Perez was 3–4 with a 6.82 ERA in just 14 starts in 2009.
He will earn $12 million each of the next two seasons, after which he will again be eligible for free agency.
By the way, Davidoff also provides quotes from Cardinals GM John Mozeliak about Matt Holliday; Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos on Roy Halladay; and Padres GM Jed Hoyer on Adrian Gonzalez; which you can read here.
