Should the Yankees Pursue NEW Ace Trade Target? | Yankees Offseason Rumors

Should the Yankees Pursue NEW Ace Trade Target? | Yankees Offseason Rumors

Andy McCulla of The Athletic is reporting that Freddy Peralta is a pitcher who the Milwaukee Brewers will field offers for. And I think the New York Yankees should be exploring that kind of trade or at least the pitching market. We’re going to talk about Freddy Peralta, how he could impact the Yankees, why he is such a successful starting pitcher, and also why the Brewers looking to trade him. We’ll also talk about why the pitching market is so strong and why the Yankees uh could take advantage of that despite not really having a massive uh need inside their rotation. Um and we’ll also talk a little bit about some stuff with the Yankees and some international free agents. I got a little bit of discourse about that. So, we’ll talk about that a little bit at the end of today’s episode. But, thank you guys so much for tuning in. If you guys are listening to this uh on Apple or Spotify, we really appreciate it. If you’re watching on YouTube, thank you for watching on YouTube. Uh we really appreciate all your continued support. Uh and we’ll continue giving you guys off all seasonason content daily. Lots of videos, lots of stuff coming out in the upcoming days and weeks. Chris and I are going to link up and do some more podcasts. Uh and I’ve got some top 10s for free agents to drop at some point. Chris has got some stuff he’s dropping as well. Without further ado, let’s just get into today’s topic. Talking about Freddy Peralta. And Freddy Peralta is a top 20 starting pitcher uh in the sport in my opinion. over the last three years. He’s inside the top 20 in erra. He’s inside the top 20 in strikeout rate to strike out to walk rate as well. Uh this is a guy who I think is a back-end number one starter and one of the best number two starters in the league if that is the role he ha you have him in. Uh his strikeout to walk rate is something that’s really important to me. I think strikeout to walk rate in general is one of the most important metrics in baseball. You can define how good a pitcher is by their ability to limit walks but get a lot of swings and misses. And for Freddy Peralta, while he does walk his fair share of batters to around an 8 to 9% walk rate over the last 3 years, he strikes out nearly 29% of them. So, he’s a guy who’s going to go out there and strike out everybody. And he doesn’t allow a lot of hits. His batting average against is 208. That’s seventh uh among starting pitchers over the last three uh last three seasons. And when you talk about low batting average, high strikeout to walk rates, that’s the kind of pitcher who I think is going to have success. I think that that pitcher is going to be very effective. Prol is very tough to generate hits off of. He gives up a lot of fly balls, but a lot of swing and miss, a lot of weak contact in the air. Um, he does have a home run problem. That is definitely important. But that home run problem has gotten better. He reduced from a firmly below average hitter in terms of home run uh pitcher in terms of home run prevention uh to a pitcher who is roughly league average this past year in home run prevention. And so I think that’s definitely a tick up and that’s something that makes me more interested in bringing him into the Bronx and and making him a New York Yankee via the trademark. Now, if you want to compare him to other top flight starters over the last three seasons, his 20% strikeout to walk percentages uh in the same ballpark as guys like George Kirby, Garrett Cole, Blake Snell, Brian Woo, Michael King, Dylan CE, like those kinds of pitchers are who he’s uh ranking next to in strikeout to walk rate. If you want to look at erra minus, which is just adjusted RA for your ballpark, uh for the league environment, uh his ERA minus of 81, it’s around the Framber Valdez, Tyler Glass now, Mel Kelly, Brian Woo, Ranger Suarez, Cole Reagan’s range. So, his run prevention is really good. that it stacks up there with a guy like Valdez who I think without that incident against the Yankees where he potentially maliciously threw out his catcher would be a guy who’s getting close to $200 million or at least you know getting around 25 to $30 million a year for uh five or six or seven years. I think that Freddy Peralta comparing to that kind of pitcher in terms of run prevention and then comparing to the likes of Garrick Cole and and Brian Woo in terms of strikeout to walk rates that makes him someone who’s very attractive uh to any team trying to contend for a World Series. He’s got a funky release point that makes that four seam fast play up in the zone. He’s really gotten a great feel for his change up. His curve ball and slider are good breaking balls with good whiff rates. actually thought he underutilized his slider this past season, but we’ll talk a little more about where I think the Yankees could uh make improvements or tweaks to make him even better. But Peralta to me is a your prototypical like it’s not great if he’s your ace. Like you’re happy if he’s your ace, but you’re not thrilled. Um and if he’s your number two, you you have one of the nastiest rotations in all of baseball. And we start looking at this Yankee rotation and and looking at a depth chart here. You would have Max Freed when everyone’s healthy. uh Carlos Rodon, you’d have Garrett Cole, you’d have Freddy Peralta, you’d have Cam Schlitler. Like, that’s one of the best starting fives I think the Yankees have ever put together. You could argue that on paper that could be the Yankees best starting five in franchise history. And I I don’t like to, you know, overexaggerate. I think that overexaggerating uh in a positive manner can just set you up for disappointment and ultimately creates unfair expectations on players. But I think that that’s the ceiling of this group if you put them all together. Like this group definitely has that kind of ceiling. Ceiling doesn’t mean that that’s the outcome you’ll get. But I definitely think it’s important to note how high your ceiling is. The floor is pretty high here too because Warren and Heel are depth starters who can I think can be productive major league starters. Um if guys get hurt. Uh you’re not going to start with Rodon to start the year. You’re not going to start with Cole to start the year. You you could get back Schmidt during the middle of the year. Like there’s a lot that could happen throughout the season that makes this rotation depth just obscene. It’s it’s just crazy. I mean we talk about rotation depth like Cam Schlitler calls Rodon fighting to be your fourth or fifth starter. Are you kidding me? Will Warren and Luis Seals your sixth and seventh starters. Clark Schmidt comes back. You might not even have room for him. That is where the Yankees need to be at with the rotation. That’s where you should be at as a pitching staff. I don’t know where I’m going to fit these guys in the playoff rotation. I don’t know how I’m going to fit them. There’s too much talent here. Not that’s that’s how the Dodgers built their rotation. They have too much talent. They have too many arms. They had Tyler Glass now pitching out of the bullpen in the NLDS and using him in a versatile kind of uh swingman role. Kershaw’s in their bullpen. Sasaki got to move to their bullpen. EMTT Shihan’s in their bullpen. Like this group has put together just an incredible an absurd amount of pitching depth despite the amount of injuries they’ve had throughout the years. So when you can take a guy like Emtt Shihan who, you know, had 15 appearances, 12 of them starts, pitched to a 2.82 RA, a 30.6% strikeout rate, this guy be would be a shoein for the Yankee rotation. We would we would have we would be crowning him as a guy who must be in the rotation next year, who could be one of your three best starters next year. Um, this is a guy who they have in the bullpen. You know what I like Clayton Kershaw was really, really solid this year in terms of run prevention and is a guy who has tons of playoff experience, although not a lot of really good memories in the postseason. He put up a 3.36 RA, a 3.55 fib, and he’s in their bullpen. He’s not starting for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and he didn’t really get a chance to start for the Dodgers this postseason. Um, Justin Robleski last year, um, you know, he he wasn’t a great starter at the MLB level. This year wasn’t really a great run preventer, but had really good underlying metrics. They took a starting prospect and said, “Hey, we’re going to move you to the bullpen because we just we have too much talent. We don’t have room for you. We we don’t have room for you in that role.” Ben Kasparis, similar situation. And they still have injuries. I mean, Landon Knack is out. Um, you know, they’ve had injuries with uh Tony Tony Gon, Kyle Hurt, River Ryan, Gavin Stonler, some of their top pitching prospects. Michael Grove, um Michael Copek’s hurt, uh Evan Phillips hurt, Brock Stewart, Kirby Yates, like they have so many injuries, but they still have so much depth. And I think that’s a reflection of again being able to accumulate so much pitching uh depth and pitching talent. And it’s not to say that your roster construction needs to be built around simply pitching. Like it would be crazy to ignore the fact that they have Show Otani who’s also in the rotation. Mookie Betts, Freddy Freeman, Will Smith, Maxy, Tiar Hernandez, like those are all big boppers. All guys who could put up an 800 plus OPS any given year. Uh and you know the Yankees obviously don’t have that kind of hall of fame level talent. They don’t have three Hall of Famers in their prime on the roster or you know still at the peak of their powers or close to it. Granted Mookie bets maybe that’s a stretch to say that but Yankees have Cole and I mean Judge and Stanton and those guys are going to be Hall of Famers I think but um you know they’re not that’s two right you need a third maybe or uh you need more depth. I I think if you look at the bottom three of the Dodger lineup you know it’s Tommy Edmond, Enrique Hernandez, uh Andy Pahz. You know PZ is a really good player. He’s a really good defender. Not the hitter I think the Dodgers hoped he’d become. like he’s he’s a good not great hitter. Too many strikeouts relative to the or excuse me, not enough walks relative uh to what you would expect or what you’d hope for, but he’s a good player. He put up a four war this season. They have a deep lineup. They have tons of star power. They have tons of platooning. Like depth and collecting talent is how you do it, folks. And on the pitching side at least, and I know I’ve just gone on this long tangent about collecting uh talent, but Freddy Peralta, sure you can say, “Well, where do you do what do you do with Luis Heel?” You figure it out. Guys are gonna get hurt. You’re you’re gonna have room for Luis Heel. you’re gonna have room for Will Warren. You’re gonna have room for these guys. These guys are going to pitch. These guys are going to have time to pitch. Guys are going to get hurt. You know, these things are going to happen. And and that’s baseball. And I think that the Yankees need to uh be as built as possible to avoid being a complete disaster in that regard. And again, I just think that when we look at Freddy Freddy Peralta, $8 million club option for next year, uh one-year rental, like you don’t need to pay him beyond that. Uh he’s only going to cost you $8 million in some prospects. uh like this is the kind of guy where you slot him in the into the middle of your rotation and you’ve just got a star-studded group. Now, uh when it comes to trade value, Peralta is going to carry I think a little more trade value than than people think, even though he’s a rental. I I don’t know if it’s Corbin Burns trade value, but I think it’s close to that because of the $8 million salary like teams don’t have to worry about a large luxury tax hit. Usually uh these kinds of pitchers come with like a 1561 17 $18 million arbitration three luxury tax hit. Peralta is going to come at $8 million. So um it gives you flexibility to go out and make other additions. I think if the Yankees were to make a trade with the Brewers, a quick mock trade I just whip up in my head, look, if you sign Cody Bellinger, you’re not going to really need Spencer Jones. So you can trade Spencer Jones here. Um Elmer Rodriguez Cruz and then you throw in a lower level guy like a TJ Rumfield or not lower level, excuse me, lower lower ranked guy. And I think that’s like a competitive offer. I don’t really know what the Brewers looking for. I don’t know what they value heavily in terms of prospects. So, that’s just off the top of my head. That’s not really like a set in stone. This is the best thing I could come up with. Uh I I honestly would kind of need to really sit sit down and map that out and talk to some Brewers uh fans I know and and talk to some baseball people and kind of figure out like, hey, where is the value lining up the best? Where can you uh where would the Brewers have some more weak spots? I’d have to take a deeper look to really know. Um but that’s just kind of a mock trade off the top of my head. Uh but again, Freddy Peralta, you know, he’s top 20 in erra, top 20 in strikeout to walk rate. Really good swing and miss getter. Doesn’t allow a lot of uh hits. He he’s a perfect perfect fit for the middle of this rotation. Um you have a rotation where you have Max Freed, Freddy Paltz, Garrett Cole, calls for Don Camp Flitler. Like that is the best rotation arguably in baseball. I think again the Dodgers are the only rotation who’s uh better than that one. You’re going to win a lot of baseball games. You’re going to feel like the evil empire Yankees. you’re going to feel like you can go out like if you do that on top of making some additions offensively, you’ve just got this incredibly talented team that they they should finish top five in offense. They should be a better base running team than they were in years past. They could be a better defensive team than they were in years past. Depending on what additions you make this winter, this team could be freaking good, man. You can put together a really freaking good ball club. And I think Freddy Peralta, like I don’t think it’s got to be him specifically. You know, there’s other starting pitchers out there on the trade market, but I think a player of that caliber being added to this roster, it just makes you feel like the Yankees that the Yankees looked at this past season and went, “We’re not happy. We’re not satisfied. It’s got to get better than this. Our rotation wasn’t good enough in the postseason. It It needs to get better. Clearly, it wasn’t good enough. It It gets better. We’re going to make it better.” Uh we’re not going to rely on just on Garrick Cole coming back and hopefully Clark Schmidt coming back. We’re going to rely on or and Carl Jordan’s procedure going well and him looking sharp as ever. We’re going to rely on good players. We’re going to rely on good players and we’re going to hope the injured guys come back and contribute. And if they don’t, we’ll still be in a good spot. We’re going to hope for good players. We’re going to go out and get good players. That’s what the Yankees should be about. That’s what the Dodgers are about. That’s what that’s what the Yankees should be about, being the Dodgers. And that’s a very Dodger move. I wouldn’t be stunned if the Dodgers try and trade for a starter this winter. Like, that’s what the Dodgers do, guys. The Dodgers go out there and they say, “We’re not satisfied. Uh I I don’t see the point. What is there to be satisfied about? You can get better. So, go get better.” I want the Yankees to think in the same mentality. you can be better, so go get better. And I think that’s the exact kind of player uh Freddy Pa presents, the exact kind of opportunity where you didn’t need to have him, but you’re the Yankee, so you got him. You’re the Yankee, so you got him. That’s you were trying to win a World Series. Level of urgency with Aaron Judge being 34. I think this fan base would appreciate it. And I think that um you know, that’s not the number one priority. Obviously, you want to win baseball games, but I think the fact that you would win baseball games, more baseball games than you would without him. And I think the fan base, I think, you know, everyone watching this would really appreciate the team saying or the team making moves and having actions that reflect that kind of message that they try to tell fans that they truly believe that it does hurt them, that HAL is disappointing, that this does eat at them. I get that and I think fans have heard that. They’ve heard a lot and I’m not saying that to say that they’re liars, but um fans will buy in when there’s action. I do want to kind of talk a little bit about uh Murakami uh Munich Murakami because Mark Feinstand said uh earlier I think it was yesterday that the Yankees are going to be interested in Murakami and I said he’s not a fit. He doesn’t fit the Yankees. There’s it’s just not a good fit. It’s not a good fit. He’s not a bad baseball player. I don’t think he’s in, you know, he’s he’s going to be a big leager and I think he belongs in the big leagues, but not a good fit. And I got to kind of double down here because I’m not going to back off because of criticism. I’m I’m very strong about this take and um I feel 100% accurate about it. I I feel I feel really good about this. Look, Murakami is a high whiff hitter, is a strikeout machine, is a guy who is whiffing at a rate or making contact at a rate that’s worse than like John Carlo Stain this past season who had a 35, 36, 37, somewhere in that range, like a very high whiff rate. Minate Tech Murakami is facing fast balls that are 3 miles per hour slower than the major league fast balls on average. When you increase fast ball velocity, you decrease opposing average and you increase whiff rate. Munich Murakami might strike out 38% of the time in the big leagues. Like that could happen. And that is not the kind of player the Yankees need. Um I’m not saying that because I hate strikeouts. I’ve I mean you guys have followed me throughout the years if you have and you’ve followed me through the Joey Gallow stuff and thinking that Joey Gallow is a good fit for the Yankees and being wrong on that but but do but believing it and and owning and I’m going to own up to that. Um believing that there is value in Spencer Jones that Spencer Jones could be a big leager. Um although again not guaranteed that is to say that this isn’t I’m not a person with a track record of I hate strikeouts. Guys who strike out are not on my radar. Um, and I’m also a guy on the track record of like Yoshi Doyamoto is exactly what this team needs. Uh, I wanted Masaki Yoshida. I liked Seya Suzuki. I am I I mean I spent the same video really talking up Kazuma Akamoto as a player who I think could really help the Yankees. Again, I say all this to say this isn’t an anti-strikeout thing. And this isn’t an anti-Japanese player thing. This is a Munich Murakami may not make enough contact to be a good major league hitter. The average OPS at the first base position is around five to seven% better than the league average compared to every other position group combined. Like first baseman are supposed to be able to hit. They have to be at least 5 to 7% better than the league average hitter to be an average hitting first baseman. Munich Murakami may not make enough contact to be an average hitter his first year. And even if he is an average hitter, let’s say again 5 to 10% better than the league average hitter. relative to first base. He’s not a good enough glove where it’s worth it. And it’s not like the Yankees have a hole at first base. Ben Rice is their first baseman. Ben Rice had a really good year. Ben Rice was one of the 25 to 30 best hitters in terms of results this year. His expected OPS was inside the top 10. Like, he is a guy the Yankees love. He’s a really darn good hitter. Austin Wells, I understand the the complaints with what he did this year. He walked less. That was not good. He chased too much. His situational at bats, his approach was poor. like it was a poor offensive season relative to expectation or just in general for Austin Wells, but it’s all relative to the catcher, right? You have to um you’re going to have to move Ben Rice to catcher to roster Munich Murakami. Austin Wells’s OPS was about 15 to 16 points higher than the average catcher’s OPS this past season. He is a better hitter than the average catcher and he finished top five in fielding run value. So, he was a better defender than the average catcher as who’s inside the top five defensively or you know you want to be say like you let’s be not strict to that top five mark let’s say top 10 if he’s a top 10 defender at the position and he is better than the league average hitter at the position I’m not sure that’s the kind of player that you need to desperately move on from when he’s making pre-arbitration salary furthermore it’s not the kind of player you move on from for Munich Murakami who again may not even reach the league average threshold for a hitter based on the fact that he swings and misses so much and has such a high strikeout rate and how poorly that can play in any lineup, in any ballpark, in any situation. The Yankees don’t desperately need power to the point that they need to take a risk on a guy who may not hit and take a risk on making their catching defense significantly worse. I think if it was like, hey, you know, the Yankees are going to try and bring in, you know, a top five first baseman and that’s why they’re going to get rid of Austin Wells. Sure, that makes sense, right? Like it’s a it’s it’s bringing in a superstar. I’m all for bringing in superstar superstars and you know if I wouldn’t let Jason Dominguez stop me from trying to pursue Kyle Tucker. I wouldn’t let Austin Wells stop me from like I don’t know if Vlad was available at a reasonable price in the free agent market and didn’t get an extension. But I say that all to say that isn’t the situation we’re in. Austin Wells is a good catcher. He’s not a great catcher, but he’s a good catcher. Ben Rice is a really good first baseman. He’s a really good hitter. He’s he’s a really really good hitter. I don’t know how good of a defender he’ll be, but he is a good hitter. Munich Murakami is going to cost about 10 times their salary at minimum. And you do that to potentially make your team worse. I don’t love it. I don’t love the fit. Kazumakamoto, I’m in. Right-handed, good bat to ball, good power. Still hits the ball ridiculously hard. It’s not like he’s got, you know, outlier power like Murkami has some really good raw power. But Akamoto has hit a ball 113, 114 miles per hour. He’s got good raw pop. He’s got juice in the bat, and he’s got a really good hit tool. He was the captain for the Yam Murray Giants, the most prestigious franchise in Japanese baseball. Uh like he’s the kind of player I want over Munich Murakami. And so that’s kind of that. So I’ll let you guys give your opinions on that too. Freddy Peralta, Kazuma Akamoto, Munich Murakami. Will the Yankees sign Murkami? Will they sign Akamoto? Will they trade for Peralta? Let me know what you guys think in the comment section below. And if you would make those deals, would you sign Makami? Would you sign uh Akamoto? Would you trade for Peralta? Is there someone else I should be looking at on the radar? Thank you guys so much for tuning in. really appreciate your continued support. Like, comment, subscribe, check us on Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, and of course this YouTube page. YouTube recommends you watch the video up on my left around this area, I think. I don’t I don’t know. Um, and yeah, they recommend you watch it, so you should. So, we’ll appreciate your support. Thank you again for tuning in. I can’t say thank you enough for the support you guys have given us this offseason. We’ll see you guys in the next one. Have a great rest of your day. Let’s go Yankees and peace out. [Music] [Applause] Perfect. Perfect.

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