What to expect from Everson Pereira in the Majors

With the present looking less and less rosy, the Yankees are about to get a closer view of their potential future.

New York called up No. 80 overall prospect Everson Pereira to the Majors for the first time on Tuesday. The move comes amid an eight-game losing streak for the Yankees that has caused them to fall to 60-64, 9 ½ games back of an American League Wild Card spot and in last place in the AL East.

The 22-year-old outfielder hit .291/.362/.545 with 10 homers and a 144 wRC+ in 46 games for Double-A Somerset earlier this season and hadn’t skipped a beat after a July 4 promotion to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where he produced a .312/.386/.551 line with eight homers and 130 wRC+ across 35 contests. Pereira’s .300 average, .548 slugging percentage, .921 OPS and 138 wRC+ on the season as a whole all ranked among the top four Yankees full-season qualifiers, while his 18 homers are tied for sixth-most in the farm system.

As the more traditional stats indicate, Pereira’s presence brings some impressive pop to a pinstriped lineup that could certainly use it. Entering Tuesday, Yankees hitters collectively ranked 22nd in the Majors with a .400 slugging percentage. Take away Aaron Judge’s total bases and at-bats, and that falls to .386 – the same team-wide SLG as the White Sox in 26th.

There is impact behind the numbers for Pereira too. The right-handed slugger put 96 Triple-A balls in play as measured by Statcast, and 44 of them exceeded the hard-hit standard of 95 mph. Only Judge (64.4 percent), Jake Bauers (50.4), Kyle Higashioka (48.3) and Giancarlo Stanton (47.4) have exceeded that 45.8 percent hard-hit rate among Yankees with at least 90 batted balls in the Majors this season. Pereira’s max exit velo with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre was 114.5 mph – a number only beaten by Stanton (118.3) and Judge (116.9).

While the raw pop is certainly there, Pereira will need to improve both his contact and ground-ball rates.

Pereira whiffed on 17 percent of his pitches seen with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, giving him the 24th-highest swinging-strike rate among 411 Triple-A batters with at least 150 plate appearances in 2023. His 47.9 ground-ball percentage placed 59th among the same group. That comes out of hard, aggressive hacks from the Venezuela native, who struggles especially against breaking and offspeed stuff, but as his batting average has proved, stinging the ball hard with an A swing can still generate hits upon contact, even if the result quickly reaches the infield grass.

Defensively, the Yankees have already stated that Pereira will slot in at left field, where the club has used nine different starters in 2023. The bulk of the prospect’s looks have come in that corner this season, but as a runner with slightly above-average speed, he’s also seen plenty of time in center and right at Double-A and Triple-A. He has enough arm to play in right field, but the need to rotate Judge and Stanton in that spot will likely keep him away from there in the short term.

Added to the 40-man roster when he was first Rule 5-eligible in November 2021, Pereira both forced the issue to reach the Bronx and benefited from a clear lane for his services. Having only turned 22 in April, he’ll be the second-youngest Yankee hitter to appear in a Major League game this season, trailing Anthony Volpe by only 18 days.

The pressure on a bat so young can’t be exceedingly high, but then again, this is the Big Apple. Pereira’s powerful performance or swing-and-miss-heavy ways could play a role in New York’s offseason plans as an organization that notoriously doesn't do rebuilds.