Cleveland Indians: Another move made to change things up in the bullpen

The Cleveland Indians signed veteran reliever Oliver Perez Saturday afternoon after he spent the beginning of the season in the New York Yankees system.

Jeff Beliveau had a solid outing Friday night and was rewarded by being designated for assignment by the Cleveland Indians.

The move was made this afternoon after it was announced the team had signed veteran reliever Oliver Perez, who is also a left-handed pitcher.

Perez was released by the New York Yankees Friday night after spending the start of the year in Triple-A.

The veteran pitcher has been around since 2002 and was a starting pitcher through 2010. He then made the switch to being a reliever, where he most recently pitched for the Washington Nationals.

Left-handed hitters have an average of .231 against Perez during his career, while right-handed hitters have an average of .249.

Perez is realistically being brought in to provide some help against left-handed hitters while Andrew Miller remains out. Even beyond then, Perez shouldn’t be seen as just a temporary option, given he doesn’t come in and absolutely collapse.

As for Beliveau, his journey continues as this is not the first time he has left Cleveland this season. He only made nine appearances and clearly didn’t show enough to gain enough trust from the coaches and the front office. Such is the journey of a reliever.

Perez and Olson now line up as the two lefties in the bullpen as we await the return of Miller. Hopefully Perez can come in and provide consistent scoreless work so Miller doesn’t try to rush himself back once again.

The best thing to do now is adopt the “wait and see” approach. The Indians have made so many changes to the bullpen the past two months that I am exhausted to even think about considering this signing a success or a failure.

Next: Top 5 home run hitters in franchise history

What are your thoughts on bringing in Perez?