Should We Be Worried About Freddy Peralta?

[Jason Wang]

He hasn’t had the best time in spring training, but is it a cause for concern—or simply how the preseason goes?

Image courtesy of © Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Freddy Peralta was one of the first Opening Day starters to be named, getting the nod all the way back on February 13th. It will be his second year at the top of Milwaukee’s rotation, a spot typically granted to the most effective starting pitcher. However, if you caught his most recent spring training outing against the Diamondbacks, you’ll know that he has looked like anything but a true ace.

In what will be his final spring training outing, Peralta pitched 3 ⅓ innings with five strikeouts—not bad, until you realize he also gave up eight hits, four walks, and ten (10) (TEN!) earned runs. He was on the receiving end of a lot of hard contact, conceding two home runs and four earned runs in the first inning alone.

In a way, it was an appropriate bookend for his spring training experience. In his first start of the spring, he also gave up two home runs and three earned runs in two innings of work against the Giants. After two solid scoreless starts against the White Sox and Athletics, things seemed like they would return to normal and he entered his final start with a 2.61 ERA over 8 ⅓ innings. That has now ballooned to an 8.56 ERA over 13 ⅔ innings.

The real question is whether all of this means anything. Pitchers are known to be apathetic about spring training numbers, with many often claiming that they “don’t want to waste good pitching.” In 2023, Zack Greinke intentionally (according to him, at least) gave up nine earned runs in 2 ⅓ innings after lamenting that he hadn’t seen enough baserunners to practice the new pickoff protocol that had been introduced that year. Of course, he posted a 5.06 ERA over 142 ⅓ innings in what ended up being his final year in the league, but hey, maybe that was intentional, too.

So what’s the deal with Peralta? Is he just a slow starter? Well, I wanted to start by looking at his past spring training numbers from each year since he debuted in 2018:

Year	Innings	ERA
2024	15	7.20
2023	14	3.21
2022	14 ⅓	6.28
2021	13 ⅔	3.95
2020	12	4.50
2019	10 ⅔	5.06
2018	3	0.00

Based on this, my takeaway is that it just varies. Some years he’s decent, and others he isn't. His ERA hasn’t gotten quite as high as it has this spring, but he was at a 7.20 last year and he turned out okay—even if he didn’t resemble your ideal ace.

In fact, this sort of behavior should be expected. If you’ve been watching Peralta for a while, you'll know that he tends to oscillate between being as dominant as any other starter in the league and struggling to make it through four innings. Funnily enough, he’s often consistent enough with his inconsistency to make it undetectable when looking at data by season or even by month, but trust me, it’s there.

Here are some examples from 2024 of his back-and-forth performances. To help capture the difference in performance, I’ll be making use of Baseball Reference’s game score statistic as a high-level proxy for the quality of each outing.

• On Apr. 19, 2024, he made a start against the Cardinals where he pitched six scoreless innings with seven strikeouts.
  Game score: 69
  • His next start on Apr. 25, against the Pirates, saw him give up five earned runs in 4 ⅔ innings.
    Game score: 34
• On Jun. 14, he made a start against the Reds wherein he gave up 10 hits and six earned runs across 5 ⅓ innings.
  Game score: 29
  • In his next start (on Jun. 19 against the Angels), he struck out eight and walked two in six scoreless innings.
    Game score: 72
• On Jul. 12, he made a start against the Nationals in which he gave up 10 hits and four earned runs in five innings.
  Game score: 37
  • In the very next start against the Twins on Jul. 20, he struck out eight and gave up just two hits in six innings.
    Game score: 74

If you were to plot all his game scores on a line, it could serve as the draft to a roller coaster turbulent enough to replace the now-retired Kingda Ka. Otherwise, you can use it as reassurance that Peralta will almost always be valued incorrectly over small sample sizes, because of how mercurial he often is on the mound. (When you see this, keep in mind that 50 is a roughly average appearance, and that anything above 70 or below 35 is considered fairly extreme.)

Based on his reaction to the whole thing, he and the squad aren’t too worried. In fact, they were more worried about Joey Ortiz’s mad dash to the bathroom than anything else. Overall, it was a weird game with the Brewers facing off against Corbin Burnes, the team’s former perennial ace (who had a pretty rough outing himself). It didn't seem like anyone remembered how to play a classy game of baseball.

At the end of the day, the purpose of spring training is to get some good practice in before the season starts. Every minute detail of every player's performance is quantified and tracked obsessively for 162 games. Once Opening Day rolls around, you’ll probably forget this all ever happened.

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[edfunderburk]

10 earned runs allowed in 3.1 innings in the final tune up before Opening Day after an up & down 2024 season … Why worry?

[Jason Wang]

1 hour ago, edfunderburk said:

10 earned runs allowed in 3.1 innings in the final tune up before Opening Day after an up & down 2024 season … Why worry?

i love ur optimism mr. funderburk!

[Frisbee Slider]

Corbin Burnes allowed 11 hits in 2.2 IP in the same game Peralta allowed 8 hits over 3.1 IP on Friday.

I’m not worried. I assume Peralta will be around his career average 3.79 ERA this year.

Ben Sheets had terrible outcomes every spring, too.

[WAN2]

An "ace" by default.  

[Frisbee Slider]

49 minutes ago, WAN2 said:

An "ace" by default.  

Ace is probably too strong of a word when your ERA is almost always around 3.80. At the same time, he is a reliable starting pitcher.

if he was a free agent, he would make double or triple his salary. 

[Brian]

11 hours ago, edfunderburk said:

10 earned runs allowed in 3.1 innings in the final tune up before Opening Day after an up & down 2024 season … Why worry?

He wouldn't be the ACE on any team in baseball I don't think.  I put him on the level of a Bryce Wilson who we traded. 

[duewizard]

I don't put much stock on spring numbers. Only two exceptions for this are prospects (good to see how they perform vs big leaguers) and fringe roster guys. (your Capras and Garcías who are competing for the last place on the pen/bench).

 

[wiguy94]

Just now, Brian said:

He wouldn't be the ACE on any team in baseball I don't think.  I put him on the level of a Bryce Wilson who we traded. 

Well you’re absolutely wrong to do that. Freddy isn’t an ace but he’s miles better than Bryse Wilson.

[sveumrules]

56 minutes ago, WAN2 said:

An "ace" by default.  

There are only a handful of true aces at any given time, so most teams' aces are by default. We know Freddy isn't an ace, but what is he then?

I think most would agree we've had five true aces in franchise history - Higuera (71 ERA- | 76 FIP- from 1986-88), Sheets (75 ERA- | 71 FIP- from 2004-08), Sabathia (39 ERA- | 56 FIP-), Burnes (68 ERA- | 67 FIP- from 2020-23) and Woodruff (69 ERA- | 72 FIP- from 2019-23).

He didn't keep it up for his whole career with the Brewers (109 ERA- | 116 FIP- from 1980-84), but Mike Caldwell also had a two year mini-ace run with a 70 ERA- | 82 FIP- from 1978-79. 

When it comes to rounding out the Top Ten, Freddy (83 ERA- | 86 FIP- from 2021-24) fits in pretty nicely next to a couple other guys who were aces by default in Gallardo (89 ERA- | 88 FIP- from 2007-12) and Bosio (86 ERA- | 89 FIP- from 1988-92).

But what does that mean today? Looking at Steamer projections they have Freddy down for 3.1 WAR making him a Top 25 pitcher in MLB. Some other guys in his neighborhood are $182M Blake Snell (3.4), $218M Max Fried (3.3), $56M Sandy Alcantara (3.3), $172M Aaron Nola (3.2), $75M Spencer Strider (3.2), $325M Yoshi Yamamoto (3.1), $53M Shota Imanga (2.9), $53M Hunter Greene (2.8), $162M Carlos Rodon (2.7).

Last year his 3.5 rWAR was good for Top 30 status. Other guys in his neighborhood included Dylan Cease (3.8), Michael King (3.7), Tanner Bibbee (3.5), Tobias Myers (3.5), Ranger Suarez (3.4), Nestor Cortes (3.3), Nick Martinez (3.3), Zac Gallen (3.2), Luis Gil (3.2), Tyler Glasnow (3.2), Garrett Crochet (3.1), Justin Steele (3.1), Jose Quintana (3.0).

So not an ace, just a Top 10 starter in franchise history and around the 25 to 30's or so currently in the same general range as a bunch of guys making a lot more money.

 

[Brian]

13 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Well you’re absolutely wrong to do that. Freddy isn’t an ace but he’s miles better than Bryse Wilson.

I would give Freddy P more endurance than Bryce W but when its all said and done, by the time we pull him, we will 80% of the time be losing the game by a few runs. He would be an "ACE" on about 3 or 4 teams IMHO.

I hope I'm wrong but I don't feel it.