The Milwaukee Brewers Could Still Lose the Freddy Peralta Trade

When the Milwaukee Brewers made the decision to trade Freddy Peralta back in January everybody accepted that this was the Brewers operating how they always have, extracting value from an expiring asset before it was too late.

Trading Peralta netted them two top-100 prospects, which any model would agree is far more valuable than the draft compensation they would have gotten if they held onto him and tagged him with a qualifying offer after the season. The Brewers have built their team by making trades just like this.

Trading Josh Hader netted them Esteury Ruiz, who in turn got them their superstar catcher William Contreras. Dealing Corbin Burnes got them Joey Ortiz, who has been a key part of their infield mix the last few seasons, and DL Hall, who has come up big for them out of the bullpen.

Time and time again, the Brewers have been proven right to cash in on their assets before it was too late. And their assessment on Peralta was no different, as they proved they could make it all the way to the World Series without him.

The only problem now is that Peralta has found his way to the World Series as well.

After a miserable stretch to start his season with the New York Mets, Peralta was dealt again at the trade deadline and got sent to the best team in the American League, the Tampa Bay Rays. We didn’t know it then, but this set up a collision course between Peralta and his former team.

The Rays opened up the postseason with a dominant sweep over the New York Yankees in the ALDS, before moving on to face the Cleveland Guardians in the ALCS. After falling behind two games to one in the series, the Rays hit their stride, winning three straight to clinch their spot in the Fall Classic.

As for Peralta? Not only did he help the Rays get to the World Series, but he was also just named the ALCS MVP, and now gets the chance to make his former team pay for trading him 10 months ago.

From Traded Twice, to ALCS MVP

When Freddy Peralta was first traded to the New York Mets, he was being advertised as the missing piece to a team with World Series aspirations. Then the season started and those high expectations proved to be sorely misplaced.

The Mets lost 12 games in a row in April, and watched their season fall apart before it even got started.

Peralta actually wasn’t too bad to start off the year, as he pitched to a 3.10 ERA over his first nine starts. Then as the Mets tried to salvage their season in May, Peralta fell apart entirely. Across his final 13 starts for the Mets, Peralta pitched to a 6.44 ERA.

Completely out of the race by the deadline, the Mets flipped Peralta in a deal with Tampa for three prospects, giving Freddy a chance to start over. While it wasn’t perfect out of the gate, the Rays slowly but surely got Peralta back to pitching like himself again.

By September, he was back in peak form, pitching to a 0.96 ERA over his final five starts, winning the American League Pitcher of the Month along the way. Peralta has carried over that success into October, as he currently has a 1.08 ERA across three starts and a relief appearance.

Against the Yankees, Peralta went 4 2/3 innings in his start, giving up one run on a solo homer. After sweeping the Yankees, the Rays lost their first playoff game against the Guardians, wasting a quality start by ace Drew Rasmussen. This put Peralta on the mound for Game 2.

Looking to even up the series, Peralta was dominant, pitching six shutout innings, striking out six, while giving up just four hits and two walks. The Rays went on to win 3-1.

In Game 4, Peralta entered the contest out of the bullpen in the 6th inning with a man on and a man out, as the Rays were clinging to a 2-1 lead. Peralta would get two big outs for the Rays, and they continued to piece it together from there, beating Cleveland 7-3 to even up the series at two games apiece.

In Game 5, Rasmussen led the Rays to a victory with seven strong innings pitched, and that put Peralta in line to pitch Game 6 with a chance to lead his newfound team to the World Series.

Again, Peralta was outstanding. He kept the Guardians offense at bay, while the Rays scored two runs in the second inning, and then another in the third. Peralta went five scoreless innings before finally yielding a run with one out in the sixth.

Put it all together, and Peralta pitched 12 innings for the Rays in the ALCS, giving up just one run on nine hits and six walks. For his efforts, he was named the ALCS MVP.

Four days from now, he will likely be taking the mound for Game 2 of the World Series against the Brewers.

Did the Brewers Make a Mistake Trading Peralta?

The Brewers’ path to winning the Freddy Peralta trade is pretty simple. They now have to beat Freddy Peralta.

If Milwaukee manages to win the World Series, everyone can forget about Peralta, and the Brewers can celebrate their title, knowing that they still have Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams in their organization to make future runs while Peralta hits the open market to find yet another new team.

But the story changes if they lose. Imagine they lose and Peralta adds a World Series MVP to his list of accolades, along with ALCS MVP, and steals a championship right out from under his former team.

That is the nightmare scenario for the Brewers, and one that could have been avoided at multiple junctures.

First, they never had to trade Peralta in the first place. A team coming off three straight division titles and a 97-win season, the Brewers were clearly in win-now mode when they dealt Peralta. And the then-29-year-old was coming off his best season, one where he pitched to a 2.70 ERA over 176 2/3 innings.

Sure, the Brewers had Jacob Misiorowski ready to take Peralta’s mantle as the team’s ace, but what’s really wrong with having two guys that can headline your rotation?

The Brewers model is hard to argue with, as it has built them into a juggernaut despite their small market limitations. But there is a point in time where you have to set the model aside in an effort to win it all.

At the trade deadline, the Brewers stuck to the model, holding back the pieces it would have taken to trade for Tarik Skubal. And you know what? They were right.

They ended up sweeping Skubal and the Dodgers right out of the playoffs. There is every chance the same thing happens with the Rays. It is just hard to ignore the irony of meeting Peralta at this point in time, and the narrative that is now unfolding.

While Peralta did not pitch well this season as a whole, it is fair to assume that he would have handled himself much better in Milwaukee than he did in New York. And if you had him for this series and took him off the Rays, the Brewers would have an overwhelming advantage in the pitching department for this World Series.

Instead, you can make the argument that the Rays have the advantage in terms of starting pitching at least, with Rasmussen, Peralta, and even Nick Martinez in tow. The Brewers lineup just went through Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, and Tyler Glasnow, so they shouldn’t fear the Rays.

At the same time, we all know how unpredictable postseason baseball can be.

The crazy part about the Peralta situation is that they could have gotten him back at the deadline, as there was some rumored interest in a reunion.

Instead, the Mets sent him to the Rays, and the Brewers made a trade with the Cardinals for Dustin May and JoJo Romero.

The Brewers were unable to reclaim May in the way they had hoped, where he would be a full-fledged starter for them come October, and he has instead given up five runs in seven innings of postseason work. Romero has been much better, allowing just one run across four playoff appearances and putting up two huge scoreless frames in the NLCS-clincher against the Dodgers.

Still, Peralta’s impact for the Rays has far exceeded what those two arms have produced.

Across two series, Peralta has given up two runs in 16 2/3 innings pitched (1.08 ERA), while the duo of May and Romero have combined to give up five runs in 12 innings pitched (4.38 ERA).

While it’s oversimplifying to say you can copy and paste the production the Rays have gotten from Peralta had he stayed, it’s not a huge leap to assume he could have provided more valuable innings to Milwaukee than May and Romero have.

The Prospects Could Only Make This Worse

At the end of the day, winning cures all, and if the Brewers win their first World Series title, none of this matters. But if they don’t win it, the second-guessing will only become more rampant, especially when you consider the return they got for Peralta and then what they gave up for May and Romero.

Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams were the two Mets’ prospects the Brewers got back in the original trade, and both players regressed in their first season with Milwaukee.

For Sproat, we saw those struggles at the big-league level, as the 26-year-old flamethrower pitched to a 5.57 ERA across 97 innings pitched and was optioned to Triple-A at the beginning of August. The right-hander is still very talented, and the Brewers have plenty of time to get him right, but the early returns were not great.

Meanwhile, Williams saw his OPS drop 100 points compared to last year, and those struggles have only followed him into early play in the Arizona Fall League. Once a consensus top-100 prospect, the 22-year-old may not find him on many lists next season, and he already fell off our top 100 in the last update.

Only to make matters worse, Alexander Frias, the headliner of the May/Romero trade, could one day become a top-100 prospect in baseball. The 18-year-old tore the cover off the ball in the Arizona Complex League while still with the Brewers (1.196 OPS in 32 games), and held his own across stints with both the Brewers and the Cardinals’ Single-A affiliates (.736 OPS in 54 games).

Josiah Ragsdale was the other piece that went to St. Louis in the May/Romero trade, and while he is not tracking towards any top 100 lists, he was very productive this season, hitting 24 home runs in 116 games, spending half of his season in Double-A.

While the Brewers may have still been in the market for a left-handed reliever like Romero if they never made the Peralta trade, they certainly could have landed one without parting with a prospect like Frias.

In terms of prospect capital gained, when you put the Peralta return together with what the Brewers gave up in the Cardinals trade, and you also factor in the compensation they would have gotten if they simply kept Freddy and tagged him with the qualifying offer, it’s hard to see what they really gained.

Now the good news is development is not linear.

For all we know, Sproat might be getting big outs for the Brewers come next October, and Jett Williams has the athleticism that fits the mold of how they play baseball in Milwaukee. The Brewers can win this World Series, and those players may pan out and help them win more.

We won’t truly know who won or lost the two Peralta trades in terms of future value until many years from now. In the meantime, all we can do is sit back and watch what is sure to be an awesome World Series, and see how this Freddy Peralta narrative sorts itself out on the biggest stage.