Few trades that could conceivably happen for the rest of the Major League Baseball offseason would go down as blockbusters, but a deal involving Milwaukee Brewers ace Freddy Peralta would almost certainly fit the bill.
Peralta may be entering his final year before free agency, but he’s coming off his second All-Star season in which he posted a 2.70 ERA and finished fifth in Cy Young Award balloting. Most first-place teams would never dream of trading a player of his caliber, but the Brewers have done it many times over, from Josh Hader to Corbin Burnes to Devin Williams.
It would take multiple top prospects and/or established young big-leaguers to nab him in a deal, and the New York Mets might be the team with the combination of young talent and obvious need in the rotation to pull it off.
On Monday, CBS Sports’ R.J. Anderson predicted that the Mets would acquire Peralta before the end of the offseason, setting themselves up to compete in a National League East that hasn’t seen many other roster changes among the other four teams throughout the winter.
“The Brewers have mastered the craft of trading quality arms for underrated players who can contribute immediately — they netted infielder Caleb Durbin as part of last winter’s Devin Williams trade — and it seems reasonable to expect a similar outcome here,” Anderson wrote.
“While Peralta’s shared history with top Mets executive David Stearns makes this feel lazy, it makes too much sense on paper to go another direction. Landing spot: Mets.”
New York’s offseason was defined early on by departures, as the four longest-tenured players on the roster (Edwin DÃaz, Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, and Jeff McNeil) all departed via free agency or trades. But the tides started to turn on Friday with the club’s reported three-year agreement with star infielder Bo Bichette.
If New York could drive home a Peralta trade and establish one of the top rotations in the division to accompany what is sure to be an excellent lineup, there’s reason to believe it can shake off the demons of the playoff collapse this past summer.
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