Geraldo Perdomo has flown under the radar all season, but his second-half surge is demanding attention -- from fans and National League MVP voters alike.
The D-backs shortstop has quietly emerged as one of the best players in baseball, contributing across the board for an Arizona team that finds itself in NL Wild Card contention despite selling at the Trade Deadline.
Perdomo has really taken his offensive game to new heights since the All-Star break, producing nine homers with 32 walks, 23 strikeouts, 13 steals and a .333/.429/.547 slash.
The only player who has recorded a better batting line among qualifying hitters since the All-Star break? Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, the NL MVP favorite.
Highest wRC+ since All-Star break
Among qualifying hitters
1. Shohei Ohtani: 178
2. Geraldo Perdomo: 170
3-T. Kyle Schwarber: 163
3-T. Juan Soto: 163
5. Jakob Marsee: 158
A lifetime .235/.327/.330 hitter with 14 home runs in 401 games entering 2025, Perdomo was already on track for a career year when he completed the first half of this season with 10 homers and a .783 OPS.
Of course, this wasn’t the first time that the shortstop came out of the gates swinging a hot bat. He also had a .787 OPS in the first half of 2023, earning his first All-Star selection as a result, before dropping off in the second half. As a result, it was reasonable to have doubts about how he’d fare after this year’s All-Star break, even in light of some of the strides he had made to improve his contact quality and refine his approach at the plate in the first half.
Perdomo, though, hasn’t just solidified his breakout in the second half, he’s put together the hottest stretch of his career.
Taking a glimpse at Perdomo’s Baseball Savant page, what jumps out immediately are his plate-discipline and bat-to-ball metrics -- he ranks in the 96th percentile or higher in whiff rate, strikeout rate, chase rate, and walk rate. But those traits have always been part of his game, to some extent.
What sets this season apart is the damage he’s doing after making contact. After totaling just 20 barrels -- Statcast’s measure of batted balls with the optimal combination of exit velocity and launch angle -- from 2021-24, Perdomo has racked up 31 barrels this season.
In other words Perdomo is no longer just a player who delivers solid at-bats; he’s become a source of game-changing offense. Factoring in both halves, he has been the NL’s fourth-best hitter on the year with 37 runs created, per Statcast’s run value metric.
Highest batting run value, NL, 2025
1. Shohei Ohtani: +57
2. Juan Soto: +55
3. Kyle Schwarber: +51
4. Geraldo Perdomo: +37
5. Matt Olson: +29
But that number only reflects part of Perdomo’s value. He also has been a plus defender at shortstop, as well as a top-notch baserunner.
The totality of Perdomo's game has him within shouting distance of the NL WAR lead among position players (per FanGraphs), with only Ohtani and Trea Turner, who is on the injured list, ahead of him by the slimmest of margins.
fWAR leaderboard among NL position players, 2025
1. Shohei Ohtani: 6.8 (also has 1.4 fWAR as a pitcher)
2. Trea Turner: 6.7
3. Geraldo Perdomo: 6.6
4. Corbin Carroll: 5.9
5. Fernando Tatis Jr.: 5.6
Perdomo's performance has been crucial to the D-backs' surprising playoff push, which has come after the team seemingly waved the white flag by trading away pending free agents Eugenio Suárez, Merrill Kelly and Josh Naylor prior to the July 31 Trade Deadline. Arizona also lost another key player to a season-ending injury when Lourdes Gurriel Jr. tore the ACL in his right knee on Sept. 1. The D-backs previously lost ace Corbin Burnes and relievers Justin Martinez and A.J. Puk to Tommy John surgery.
But even with a decimated roster, Arizona is in it. The D-backs, whose deficit in the NL Wild Card race stood at nine games at the end of July, are now just 1 1/2 games behind the Mets for the third spot.
Perdomo, meanwhile, is showing no signs of slowing down. He reached base five times in an 8-1 win over the Giants on Monday -- a game that moved Arizona ahead of San Francisco in the Wild Card standings -- and owns a 1.108 OPS since the calendar flipped to September.