Freddy Peralta's Lack of Deception & Variety Is Limiting His Ceiling

Freddy Peralta's raw stuff has never been in question, using a low release height with great induced vertical break on his mid-90's fastball that should be devilishly troublesome for hitters to square up. His hammer curveball and slider both grade out well, while his changeup has been devastating thus far in 2025 against both left-handed and right-handed hitters alike.

The problem for Peralta has, as always, been that he can get wild with his pitches, especially in two-strike counts where he almost seems to consider it mandatory that he throw some waste pitches to "reset" a hitter's eyeline or hope for a guaranteed out if they do swing. His location on the four-seamer against the Braves on Tuesday was really wild, as noted by Dom Cotroneo:

That's certainly a big part of the equation, but there's another problem. Fastball Freddy's pitches are some of the easiest to recognize out of the hand in baseball per Jeremy Maschino's "Match+" metrics, which assess how each pitch blends with its counterparts using all sorts of data from release points, spin and movement profiles:

Not a single one of his pitches cracks a league average rating of 100 in the Match+ tracker, with two main offerings in the fastball and curveball sitting comfortably a full standard deviation away from the league average. In layman's terms, this would be a 40 grade or worse on the 20-80 scouting scale for how those pitches blend with the rest of his offerings.

The result is that hitters can take pitches out of the strike zone with ease because they can identify each pitch with greater ease than normal. If it's a fastball and looks high, they're not going to mistake it for a curveball that drops into the zone.

Thomas Nestico's TJ Stats graphs show that Peralta's chase rates on each pitch are mostly a little below league average, a number that should be in the upper echelon of starting pitchers when you consider the raw stuff and the sheer number of hitters Freddy Peralta finds himself in. His swing and miss rates when hitters chase are absurd, with over 50% of swings on chases outside the zone being missed entirely against each pitch of his curveball (55.7%), changeup (50.5%), and (yes, this is real) his slider (82.4%).

In short, if Peralta can induce hitters to chase, he'll often put them away. His arsenal just isn't deceptive enough to do so with any regularity, and as such, Peralta needs to find ways to survive inside the strike zone more often. As much as the slider might be tempting to throw even more often, here's why it won't work:

The graph above shows how, when the pitch on the x-axis (bottom) is thrown, it would then tunnel if followed by the pitch on the y-axis (left-hand side). So if a four-seam fastball is thrown, it has an 83 Match+ if followed by a slider, 66 if followed by  a curveball, and 95 if followed by a changeup.

Changeups and fastballs usually sequence together wonderfully, but Peralta's fastball has limited arm-side movement, and he drops his arm angle by 10° when throwing the changeup, meaning it looks different out of the hand quite quickly compared to most changeup/fastball combinations. That being said, its performance in sequences following the fastball has been notable for the uncomfortable swings it has generated to both right-handed and left-handed hitters.

The graph shows that the curveball doesn't play off the fastball at all (almost a 20-grade deception rating) while the slider is better but still not a strong pitch in terms of deception. The problem Peralta has is that he doesn't trust his breaking pitches inside the strike zone at all, as you can see in the TJStats model for 2025, meaning he feels the fastball is the only pitch that can live inside the strike zone. That's not necessarily been the case:

As you can see above, if Peralta avoids the middle stripe of the strike zone, his slider and curveball pay quite well in the zone. There are two benefits to this: the first is that he can feel comfortable targeting these earlier in counts and not relying solely on the fastball to pound the strike zone; secondly, when ahead, Peralta doesn't have to be as cautious as he is with his breaking pitches, which often end up as wild, waste offerings.

He can afford to aim at the edge of the strike zone, and if he misses by six inches, he'll be just fine from a results standpoint while also being close enough to the zone to get perhaps an actual chase in those 0-2 and 1-2 counts. He'll get more swings, more efficient outs, and, to boot, those pitches have seen far less damage than his fastball, which has been picked out of the hand and squared up with some regularity in 2025 (in part because it only functions well at the top of the strike zone):

Incorporating more of his breaking and off-speed pitches earlier in counts, and feeling comfortable with them inside the strike zone, could go a long way to Freddy Peralta being a genuine ace in a rotation that looks stacked with them. They may occasionally get hit hard as hitters hone in on a change in approach, but the benefits for Peralta should far outweigh the negatives.

What do you think of Freddy Peralta's recent performances? Would u like to see him be more aggressive inside the strike zone? Or do you think his cat and mouse games are the best way to get consistent performances out of him? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!