Freddy Peralta Makes National League All-Star Team, Will Be Brewers' Lone Representative

[Jack Stern]

Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

On Sunday, ESPN announced the rosters for the 2025 MLB All-Star Game, set to take place at Truist Park in the suburbs of Atlanta. Freddy Peralta will make his second trip to the Midsummer Classic as the Brewers’ lone representative—at least for now.

It’s an unsurprising revelation. Milwaukee’s position player group consists primarily of solid contributors, rather than All-Star-caliber ones. Among hitters with at least 200 plate appearances, William Contreras is the club’s only regular within the top three in fWAR at his position in the National League, and most of his value has stemmed from his defense.

Peralta, meanwhile, is in the midst of a career year, at least according to the surface-level results. The 29-year-old has posted a 2.91 ERA in 18 starts and ranks ninth in the NL in WAR. He’s also among the longest-tenured Brewers, affording him greater name recognition with the Commissioner’s Office and on player ballots, the two main vehicles for selecting pitchers and reserve position players.

The right-hander has leaned on his fastball 57.6% of the time this year, the most he’s thrown it since 2020. However, he’s also continued to rely increasingly on his changeup, which has evolved into (perhaps) his best secondary pitch against both right-handed and left-handed opponents since his last All-Star selection in 2021. He's keeping the ball in the park better than he has since 2022, and his worst Game Score in any start this year is 45; that immunity to the true implosion is a new skill for him. He pitched a spotless inning of relief in the 2021 All-Star Game, striking out the side in order.

Peralta is slated to start Monday night in Milwaukee, against the Dodgers. Thereafter, the team will have to decide whether to use their starting pitching depth to rest him until the other side of the break (allowing him to actually pitch in Georgia) or to have him come back on Sunday. There was no immediate indication as to which way they'll go, but given the meaning of this achievement for Peralta and their depth in the rotation, they could well choose to stretch the rotation and let him accept the honor.

While Peralta will most likely be the only Brewer in Atlanta, more could join him in the coming days. A handful of players typically decline to participate in the game for workload management or other reasons, at which point replacement players further down on the player ballot are added to the roster. Brice Turang and Sal Frelick could be among those candidates, and although he himself might opt out, Christian Yelich shares Peralta's combination of stout production this year and a high Q-score.

The game will be held on Tuesday, July 15, with the first pitch scheduled for 7 p.m. CT on FOX.

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[izzi]

Megill should be an all-star

[sveumrules]

21 minutes ago, izzi said:

Megill should be an all-star

Would be cool if Trevor makes it as a replacement but tied for second in the NL with 19 saves would be pretty much his whole case.

Out of 110 NL relievers with at least 20 IP Trevor's other ranks are...

65 ERA- (30th) | 76 FIP- (28th) | 86 AVG+ (33rd) | 128 K+ (18th)
0.8 rWAR (25th) | 0.7 fWAR (17th) | +0.23 WPA (58th)

Abner Uribe has had a more dominant season by pretty much every measure with his 24 holds five more than the next best NL reliever...

53 ERA- (16th) | 71 FIP- (21st) | 87 AVG+ (37th) | 150 K+ (7th)
1.2 rWAR (10th) | 0.8 fWAR (13th) | +0.75 WPA (30th)

Nick Mears even has Megill beat in everything except saves and strikeouts and has done a lot of heavy lifting with his team high 31 inherited runners the 2nd most of any NL reliever so far...

62 ERA- (26th) | 61 FIP- (9th) | 80 AVG+ (21st) | 108 K+ (48th)
1.0 rWAR (17th) | 0.9 fWAR (9th) | +0.46 WPA (40th)

Ashby is only at 19.1 IP, but he's got Megill beat across the board on rate stats with a 26 ERA- | 61 FIP- | 81 AVG+ | 141 K+ and leverage with a +0.56 WPA too.

Pretty nice that in what has been somewhat of a down year for the bullpen relative to recent iterations we still have three guys with performances as good or better than our All Star worthy closer.

[gregmag]

If one takes bWAR seriously, Turang this year is close to even with Marte (2.9 to 3.1) and superior to Donovan (2.4). To think Turang isn’t clearly deserving of an all-star spot, you pretty much have to buy fWAR’s defensive metrics and reject bWAR’s.

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, gregmag said:

If one takes bWAR seriously, Turang this year is close to even with Marte (2.9 to 3.1) and superior to Donovan (2.4). To think Turang isn’t clearly deserving of an all-star spot, you pretty much have to buy fWAR’s defensive metrics and reject bWAR’s.

He's certainly deserving, but ultimately hitting normally wins the day in this kinda stuff so guys like Turang who get a good amount of their value from defense and base running will normally lose the tie breaker if its close.

Donovan was the only Cardinal selected, so Brice had that working against him too.

[endaround]

The other pitcher close to deserving of an All Star slot was just sent down.  

Turang and Frelick have to deal with the Soto snub and the fact that even a down half really shouldn't keep Betts out of from the All Star game.