The Brewers' Game One Starter Is Virtually Assured--And A Major Concern In October

In medicine, there’s a famous saying: When you hear hoofbeats, you should think of horses not zebras. It's about not being so fascinated with a marvelous possibility that one misses a more mundane probability. In the case of Freddy Peralta, despite the incredible success he had in 2021 and in the second half of 2023, it would be folly to expect that sort of dominance next month, on the heels of what has been a slightly disappointing season. 

Peralta has been prone to home runs, poor command, an inability to put away hitters efficiently and short starts with high pitch counts. Sunday against the Rockies was just the latest example although pulling him with 83 pitches through 4 ⅔ was more likely a product of load management than of his coaching staff believing he was no longer the man for the job.

The lack of depth in his pitching arsenal, either through an elite secondary offering or a fastball variation, means that Peralta struggles upon reaching a third time through the batting order, while scores of non-competitive pitches in two strike counts leverage him into excessive walks and pitch counts that do his arm no good.

Opponent xwOBA by Time Through Batting Order, Freddy Peralta, 2024

Couple that with a struggle to command both of his breaking pitches early in his start (as you can see below, he has a tendency to hang them in pitches 0-20), and how his breaking stuff gets hammered from his 60th pitch onward (42% hard hit rate, 32% sweet spot launch angle rate) and you’re almost removing his out pitches at the beginning and end of his starts.

The changeup has been crushed the second and third time through a lineup, as well (see below), with the fastball then shouldering a lot more responsibility than it can handle. Thus, the heater is being hit hard no matter when hitters are seeing it, appearing to have lost an element of deception. In short, once hitters see Peralta’s arsenal the first time through, they really begin to settle in, and if they see him a third time, it’s barrel o’clock, with every single one of his pitches getting squared up with aplomb.

Watching Peralta tiptoe around lower-order, struggling hitters is nothing new this season, and it’s been exacerbated by the lack of consistent and dependable offspeed offerings that have allowed hitters to just sit on that fastball (whose movement has an almost identical profile to 2021 and the second half of 2023) and let it rip. As none of his pitches can come close usage-wise, it’s a safe bet to sit on, even if it means a few more strikeouts. 

Those strikeouts are the great caveat, of course. Any quality of contact metric tends to use batted balls as the denominator, so we have to notice that Peralta's ability to miss so many bats brings that number down, in order to properly evaluate him. However, the ability to rack up strikeouts is just one part of pitching. Peralta is good at it, but not very good at most of the rest of the parts of the craft, at least this season.

The best hitters in October will crush fastballs, but there is some relatively good news. Peralta's breaking pitches do have success the first two times through, or at least enough success to get by. The structure of the Brewers' staff in October (will likely feature arms like Aaron Civale, DL Hall, Aaron Ashby, Frankie Montas and Joe Ross as long relief options) may actually allow Peralta to get through just the three or four innings in which he currently seems capable of truly excelling, before passing the baton. Following a pitcher like Peralta with the left-handed breaking pitches of Hall (whom I talked about here as a viable option) would present a tough matchup for most opposing lineups. By leaning into this strength, the Brewers, while perhaps not getting the very best of Peralta, may be able to get by well enough and as a whole present a strong standard from which to begin their series on the right foot.

At the very least, Peralta has shown he can be effective if his inning is curtailed that third time through the order. He's a solid starter, if not the dominant one many were hoping for coming into this season. Getting the pitch mix right will be absolutely essential, but if the Brewers manage him correctly, they can mitigate some of the concerns around his Game 1 start.

What do you think of Freddy Peralta as a game one starter? Does it give you concern to start the series off? Or do you think he can still find some form? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!