Freddy Peralta Changed Things Up Against the Yankees, But It Could Become His New Normal

[Jack Stern]

The Brewers' Opening Day starter has worked through multiple soft evolutions in recent seasons. His first outing of 2025 featured a preview of the next adjustment he may have to make.

Image courtesy of © Brad Penner-Imagn Images

On the surface, Freddy Peralta's second career Opening Day start was a standard Peralta outing. The right-hander was not particularly efficient, requiring 93 pitches to complete five innings, but he held the New York Yankees to just a pair of runs while striking out eight.

On a deeper level, Peralta navigated those five innings differently from his usual mode of operation. The afternoon was a reminder that he is not getting guys out the same way he once did and a preview of how he might alter his standard approach as the season progresses.

Peralta has not been "Fastball Freddy" since the turn of the decade. After throwing his signature heater nearly 80% of the time in his first two seasons, he's kept its usage around 50% in each of the last four seasons while mixing in more breaking balls and changeups.

The cambio took a step forward in 2024. Peralta added just over an inch of arm-side fade to it, on average, and threw it a career-high 17.5% of the time. The pitch held opponents to a .277 wOBA, induced whiffs on 36.9% of swings, and posted a +4 pitching run value, the best of any offering in Peralta's arsenal.

On Thursday, 25.8% of Peralta's pitches were changeups, his third-highest career usage rate within a start. He even threw it 21.9% of the time to right-handed batters. The changeup (which was firmer than usual, averaging 90 mph) carried Peralta through his start by compensating for a fastball that was hit hard.

Peralta ramped up his changeup usage as the outing went along, after throwing only two in the first inning, which suggests he and William Contreras tweaked the original game plan on the fly in response to his feel for it and the early swings against his fastball. Pitchers must work with what they have on a given day, especially a less consistent hurler like Peralta.

Thursday's mix may soon become his default, though. While Peralta's changeup was more valuable than ever last year, the opposite was true of his fastball, which yielded a .338 wOBA and +1 run value. That's because it's become less of an outlier in its shape.

Hitters have described Peralta's four-seamer as an "invisible fastball" that gets on them quickly and seems to disappear late, an effect he created from a unique blend of deceptive ingredients: above-average spin, a low arm slot, elite extension, and a crossfire delivery that hid the ball until release. Vertical approach angle (VAA) is the closest metric to a catch-all for those attributes, and Peralta's four-seam VAA was among the flattest in baseball for years.

In recent seasons, the veteran has raised his arm slot and adopted a shorter and more direct stride, decreasing his VAA. Meanwhile, as more pitchers have followed suit in throwing high four-seamers from low slots, the league-wide VAA for such fastballs has increased from -5.1° in 2019 to -4.7° in 2024. Peralta's fastball still enters the strike zone at a much flatter angle than average, but it's not the unicorn it once was. Some of last year's dip might have been the result of the mechanical issue that forced him to change his mound position, but there's more at work, too.

Season	Pitcher Run Value	Whiff%	StuffPro	VAA Above Average	Extension	Arm Angle
2020	7	36.6%	-0.3	0.94	7.3	34.9
2021	22	30.9%	-0.7	0.94	7.1	36.8
2022	5	24.9%	-0.3	0.81	7.0	33.3
2023	17	29.2%	-0.3	0.80	6.9	35.8
2024	1	25.2%	0.0	0.57	6.7	39.3

Thursday saw a continuation of this multi-year trend. Peralta's fastball is still a solid pitch, but in today's environment with its current traits, opponents hit it harder and whiff less often. He'll need the offspeed stuff to keep hitters off the heat and open more ways to use it. He generated nine called strikes with his fastball at the bottom of the zone Thursday, because Yankee hitters were expecting low changeups and breaking balls to dive below their knees.

Changing eye levels also made the high fastball more effective as the game progressed. Peralta generated just three whiffs on high fastballs through his first four innings, but notched the same number in his fifth and final frame, alone.

His fastball will remain his most-used pitch, but Peralta's changeup is catching up to his fastball as his most impactful. It may take a few more starts before he commits to consistently throwing it more, but don't be surprised if it assumes a greater role in his mix as 2025 progresses.

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[Jake McKibbin]

Awesome piece Jack!

I hadn't considered the lower extension and its relation to his release height but it actually makes a lot of sense

Also intriguing as you mentioned on the fastball is how it appeared to improve as hit outing progressed. Here's his 15 pitch rolling TJstuff+ in pink (orange is the changeup)

[Terry]

Here's some summary card for Freddy, certainly some interesting change from today's start, also I'm curious if there's any accessible"VAA Above Average" leaderboard out there?

[Jake McKibbin]

Another fascinating items is the metrics behind each of Peralta's fastballs to finish.

To start his outing, he was 5.4-5.5 feet for the most part as a release height, to finish he was more 5-5.2 ft.

Also that final fastball to Aaron Judge, just above the strike zone, had a VAA of 2.4. If it was wildly above the zone I'd expect that but its outrageous for that location, including 19"" of IVB

That fastball, that's an offering that will do damage

[Jake McKibbin]

19 minutes ago, Terry said:

Here's some summary card for Freddy, certainly some interesting change from today's start, also I'm curious if there's any accessible"VAA Above Average" leaderboard out there?

This is quit a difficult thing to measure though I think Jeremy Maschino uses it to calculate his prostuff+ algorithms, it varies a lot depending on the arm angle and release point for each pitcher

[Terry]

8 minutes ago, Jake McKibbin said:

This is quit a difficult thing to measure though I think Jeremy Maschino uses it to calculate his prostuff+ algorithms, it varies a lot depending on the arm angle and release point for each pitcher

Yeah I'm wondering how they define "average", as in VAA for similar pitch height and vertical release point? Still trying to recreate my version of it. 

[Jake McKibbin]

5 hours ago, Terry said:

Yeah I'm wondering how they define "average", as in VAA for similar pitch height and vertical release point? Still trying to recreate my version of it. 

I'd guess it's a simple version not accounting for arm angle.

That being said, a lot more low release heights in MLB which has likely reduced the average VAA. It's also a stat that doesn't always work in isolation unless you check the location. Highly affected by where in the zone it's thrown 

[Terry]

26 minutes ago, Jake McKibbin said:

I'd guess it's a simple version not accounting for arm angle.

That being said, a lot more low release heights in MLB which has likely reduced the average VAA. It's also a stat that doesn't always work in isolation unless you check the location. Highly affected by where in the zone it's thrown 

Oh for sure, I think the concept is to strip away the location factor so that if you have above average numbers, you will have more room for error even if you don't locate it well. I believe facility like Tread Athletics or Driveline use a much more simple version like In-zone top-third VAA though, which is a nice alternative.

[Sugarrayray]

That’s also the most he’s favored his curveball over the slider that I can remember, right? In at least a few years.