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

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.

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.