Freddy Peralta is a Legitimate NL Cy Young Award Candidate—and the MVP of the 2025 Brewers

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images

Freddy Peralta can be polarizing. That's not true among baseball people, exactly—the industry pretty broadly agrees that he's a very good (though not quite elite) starter, and the Brewers organization uniformly loves him. He's a bright light in the clubhouse, beloved and respected for his leadership, his ebullience, and his warrior mentality. Peralta pitched most of last season at less than 100 percent; he adapted and battled to take the mound every turn through the rotation and make up for the losses of Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff. He's a creative, intelligent and fiercely competitive pitcher.

He's also a joy to watch. His flying delivery, restored to its peak uniqueness this season as he's been able to slide back to his home on the third-base side of the rubber, is the kind of physical poetry that made pitching such a captivating art a century ago. His hair, his accessories, and his feline muscularity make him a transfixing visual presence on the mound. He emotes, but not in the way of tantrums or pugnacity. He shows you the work that goes into each big out, but he does it all with the style and grace that makes high-level sport such a thrill.

Of course, over the years, he's also been a source of constant frustration for some fans. His walk rate is always north of 9%, which is higher than the league average. He induces a shockingly high number of foul balls, which can run up his pitch count and cost him innings he'd otherwise be able to pitch within games. He's never even reached 175 innings pitched in a season. At times, he's run into trouble with the home run ball. His ERA has not always matched the quality of his stuff, and he's never been a true innings eater—except last year, when he did so at the expense of some of his sheer intensity of stuff and of some of his dominance.

This year, though, Peralta is having the season that just eluded him in each of the last few. He's already made 27 starts, the most in baseball. He might only make five or six more, which means he probably won't win 20 games (his 15-5 record is the best in the majors, but we live in 2025, so let's not dwell on pitcher wins), but he probably will get to that 175-inning threshold. He's also en route to what could be the best ERA of his career. Right now, it's at 2.68. The only other time he's been under 3.00 came in 2021, when he was starting much less often in Craig Counsell's post-COVID six-man rotation. He finished that year at 2.81, but this year's Peralta has already surpassed that year's version in innings pitched.

Peralta has morphed so many times over the years that it's almost impossible to keep up. He came up as Fastball Freddy, but his slider (and its many, many forms), curveball and changeup have all taken turns stepping up as crucial secondary pitches. This year, the cambio is the featured complement, even though StuffPro and similar models think it's by far his worst pitch.

Yes, Peralta has benefited from a good defense, good run support and (perhaps) a dab of good luck. But he's also benefited, this year and in other recent ones, from his growing adaptability. Stuff models can't always account for the way that the extreme horizontal angle he creates affects opposing batters. Nor does one summary number fully capture what, say, his slider (labeled above as a sweeper) does, because that pitch takes several different shapes according to matchup, need and sequence. Peralta's pitchability has allowed his very good stuff to play up at an elite level this year, despite his sometimes erratic location thereof.

Only four National League pitchers (Paul Skenes, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Zack Wheeler and Nick Pivetta) have held opponents to a lower OPS than Peralta's .607 this year. Wheeler is out for the year with thoracic outlet syndrome. Pivetta and Yamamoto have been good this year, but aren't better than Peralta. Only Skenes, Matthew Boyd, Andrew Abbott and Cristopher Sánchez have lower ERAs than Peralta's, in a qualifying number of innings. As good as all of them are, Peralta has been more impressive and consistent than all but Skenes.

It's Skenes who poses the obvious obstacle to Peralta actually winning the NL Cy Young Award. The Pirates righty has to be the odds-on favorite for that award. Nonetheless, Peralta is a legitimate candidate, and if Skenes stumbles even a bit down the stretch, the Brewers' ace could sneak in and earn serious consideration for the award. He's been the best player on the best team in baseball, and they wouldn't function the same way (on or off the field) without him. It's been a relentless pleasure to watch him work this year.

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[endaround]

Peralta is 12th in WAR in the NL.  It's not really close.  Even ignoring Skenes, try to find one way to have him better than Sanchez. Sanchez has a better ERA, better FIP, better xERA, and has pitched 15 more innings in 1 fewer start. Being a solid #1 is enough, we don't have to pretend Peralta is the best pitcher in the league when he would be the #4 on the Phillies.

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, endaround said:

Peralta is 12th in WAR in the NL.  It's not really close.  Even ignoring Skenes, try to find one way to have him better than Sanchez. Sanchez has a better ERA, better FIP, better xERA, and has pitched 15 more innings in 1 fewer start. Being a solid #1 is enough, we don't have to pretend Peralta is the best pitcher in the league when he would be the #4 on the Phillies.

Would imagine voters are more likely to go off his 5.1 runs allowed WAR (tied for 3rd in NL with Wheeler) or his 4.4 WAR on BRef which is tied for 6th in the NL than his FIP based WAR.

Old school voters could also be swayed by his impressive W/L record, especially if he manages to hit the elusive 20 wins.

But yeah, Skenes and Sanchez should be an easy #1/#2 for NL CY and Freddy really only has a shot at #3 because Wheeler got hurt.