The talent in hand doesn’t limit the Dodgers from adding another big-time starter—Freddy Peralta could be that pitcher
According to recent reports, the Dodgers are among the teams interested in acquiring Freddy Peralta. It wasn’t that long ago when Peralta was one of the biggest obstacles in trying to prevent the Dodgers from reaching the Fall Classic as the ace of a Brewers team that faced off with Los Angeles in the NLCS. But as we know in life, things move quickly.
Before assessing the player and what his potential move would represent, the obvious question to answer is why in the world would a contender bringing back basically its entire team look to move its one established high-end starter? Well, whether a move materializes here or not, Peralta’s days with the Brewers are thoroughly numbered, as the star pitcher is entering the last year of his deal. Regardless of his importance level to this current Milwaukee team, history tells us that they won’t win any sort of bidding war to obtain the services of a high-end free agent, having last done that with Lorenzo Cain ahead of the 2018 season. So close to free agency, the likelihood that Peralta signs an extension, foregoing the chance to test the open market, is minimal, explaining why Milwaukee would be more than willing to at least entertain moving him.
As for why the Dodgers would pursue Peralta, one must first let go of any standard practices when it comes to building a winning club. For an average team, even an average World Series contender, starting pitching isn’t a need for a Dodgers team that, if it wanted to, certainly has more than enough pieces for a six-man rotation. The events of last season, however, are a cautionary tale for the optimists among you, as one of the more fearsome rotations in the modern game somehow turned into a staff with soon-to-be-retired Clayton Kershaw finishing second in innings, followed by Dustin May. While they don’t need him, Los Angeles could feasibly acquire Peralta and have Emmet Sheehan coming out of the bullpen to start the year until the inevitable first injury hits. They’re playing a separate game of accumulating talent, and perhaps the most significant difference to recent acquisitions is that they wouldn’t feel the need to quickly extend Peralta, as they did with Tyler Glasnow, for instance.
About Peralta the pitcher, the dominance of Paul Skenes, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and others overshadowed what was a phenomenal 2025 campaign from him, earning an NL-leading 17 wins with a 2.70 ERA and 3.43 xERA in 176 2/3 innings pitched. His quality is well-established. Perhaps the best way to describe him, though, particularly the fearlessness with which he pitches, is to go back to his first game in the majors—a game that said a lot about him and, as importantly, a lot about how the Brewers organization viewed this talent. Milwaukee called up Peralta in early May of 2018 to make his MLB debut at Coors Field against the last good Rockies team, a club that made the playoffs that season. Peralta didn’t shy away from the challenge and absolutely demolished Colorado with 5 2/3 scoreless innings and 13 strikeouts.
It wasn’t a straight-line path, as Peralta had his ups and downs, including mostly pitching out of the bullpen between 2019 and 2020, before firmly establishing himself as a very good starting pitcher in 2021. The stuff was always there, though.
The king of extension in the early days of his time in the bigs, Peralta has dropped off a bit in that department. Still, Peralta’s heater thrives due to its elite vertical approach angle. In a day and age in which pitchers are less and less shy about deferring to their strongest secondary offerings, Peralta operates like the vanguard, throwing his fastball over 50 percent of the time—and it’s not due to a lack of secondaries, as each of his three off-speed offerings yielded a batting average under the Mendoza line.
The elephant in the room with the Dodgers and potential pitching acquisitions is durability, and Peralta certainly answers the bell there. While his innings totals never reach the top part of leaderboards, as he tends to be not particularly efficient with a high number of pitches per inning, unwilling to cave in, Peralta has made 30+ starts in each of the last three seasons. Only four pitchers have made more starts than him during this period.
Category: General Sports
