Freddy Peralta is, without a doubt, the leader of the Brewers’ starting rotation. He is in his eighth major league season, and assuming he makes at least four more starts, this will be his fifth straight year with at least 17 games started. He’s been around, and as the other good homegrown pitchers who came up around him have disappeared due to trade (Corbin Burnes, Josh Hader) or injury (Brandon Woodruff), he has naturally slotted in as the leader of this pitching staff.
But “leader” and “ace” are not necessarily the same. The term ace, itself, is sort of in the eye of the beholder. Does every team have an ace? Is every team’s best and most reliable starting pitcher an ace? Or is there a “true ace” club, made up of guys like Paul Skenes, Zack Wheeler, and Tarik Skubal?
To risk getting too semantic, maybe there are “aces” and “true aces.” I think it can be said with some certainty that Peralta is not in the latter group. This has become a point of consternation among many fans. Peralta is the Brewers’ best starting pitcher and the leader of their staff, but he is not as good as Burnes or Woodruff were, and he is not at the level of the best pitchers in the league.
I think the reason this is so frustrating is not because Peralta isn’t one of the best pitchers in the league. It is because he often looks like one of the best pitchers in the league, but he is plagued by easily identifiable demons that limit his effectiveness. He struggles to put batters away. He lets his pitch counts get out of control. Quick innings tend to be few and far between. No matter how good he looks one inning, the next may be a struggle.
But should we be appreciating Peralta more than we do? After all, the guy he is now is not remotely unlike the guy he has been the past few seasons. From 2022-24, he had ERA+ numbers of 113, 112, and 112, respectively. There’s been a bit of variance in his peripherals, but not a ton. So far this season, he’s shown a real penchant for getting himself out of his own jams, and thus holds an ERA of just 2.92 despite a 3.96 FIP, but in general, his numbers are comparable to the past few seasons.
Part of the issue is what Peralta did in 2021. At 25 years old, he went 10-5 in 27 starts and had a 2.81 ERA/3.12 FIP while striking out 12.2 batters per nine innings. He had a WHIP of 0.970 and allowed only 5.2 hits per nine innings, which would have led the league by a lot had he thrown enough innings (his 144 1/3 innings fell just short of qualifying him for league-leading marks).
Looking back, it seems like 2021 was the outlier. Unfortunately, it seems like Peralta is closer to the pretty good pitcher from 2023 and 2024 than he is to the excellent one that he was in 2021. There were moments early this season when it looked like Peralta was figuring things out in the efficiency department, and early in the year, he was averaging more innings per start than in either of the last two years, but that trend has reversed itself lately.
This might just be who Peralta is. I understand the frustration, but if we recontextualize this a bit, we might become more appreciative of him as a player. Peralta is on an excellent contract that pays him just $8 million this year and has a team option at the same number next season. He has been very consistent and, for the most part, healthy. His reliability has been huge for this team, even if his inefficiency is as reliable as his presence.
He’s not perfect. He’s not a “true ace.” He’s not Burnes and he’s not Woodruff. But he’s a development success story, a guy who was ranked somewhere between the team’s 10th and 15th best prospect heading into the season in which he debuted; names ahead of him on that list include Tristen Lutz, Corey Ray, Brett Phillips, Luis Ortiz, Keston Hiura, and Lucas Erceg (as an infielder). He’ll throw close to 1,000 innings (at least) in a Brewer uniform before all is said and done, and if he isn’t traded before next season, he’ll have a very real chance at becoming the franchise’s all-time strikeouts leader (he’s currently 202 behind Yovani Gallardo’s team record).
Peralta was better suited to the “best third starter in the league” status he enjoyed when Burnes and Woodruff were still at their best and with the team. But he’s been a great Brewer, and even as an imperfect and sometimes frustrating player, he deserves his place in the team’s pecking order, both this season and historically.