Photo via Freddy Peralta - Instagram
Freddy Peralta pitching
Freddy Peralta
One of the biggest stories around this Brewers team has been breakout years for several of the organization’s young stars, but one name that isn’t always included in that group deserves more recognition.
The Brewers have long known that Freddy Peralta could be a top contributor to their pitching staff in the years ahead, hence their decision to sign him to a long-term extension before the 2020 season. Before this season, however, Peralta had largely lived up to that billing in abbreviated stints. From 2018-22 he averaged just over 80 innings per season, and there were stretches during that run where he looked like his future might be as a reliever.
Peralta has locked down his status as a starter in recent years, however, and in 2023 he’s been one of the Brewers’ best. He’s been especially good lately, posting a 1.75 ERA in 36 innings across his last six starts and striking out 59 batters while walking just ten. Opposing batters are hitting .167 with a .228 on-base and .238 slugging against him over that span, and the Brewers have won all six of those games.
If Peralta logs 5 1/3 innings in his next start, then he’ll already set a career high for a single season, with the entire month of September left to play. FanGraphs already estimates Peralta has been worth more this season (2.6 wins above replacement) than he was in all of 2022 (2.0), and at least one of their stats suggests that the biggest difference between this year and his previous career year in 2021 is driven by luck: xFIP, a statistic that uses batted ball data to estimate what a pitcher’s ERA should have been, says Peralta should have had a 3.66 mark in 2021 (when he had a 2.66 ERA in 144 innings) and an identical 3.66 mark in 2023 (when he’s at 3.95).
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Tough to Hit
Peralta has also always been one of MLB’s toughest pitchers to hit. Baseball Savant has him marked among the game’s elite pitchers in xBA, which predicts a pitcher’s expected batting average against based on his batted ball data, in four of his six seasons in the big leagues.
The biggest difference in Peralta’s game, however, is the way the Brewers are using him. In 2023 Peralta is facing over 23 batters per start and has been allowed to exceed 100 pitches six times. In 2021, despite his sub-3.00 ERA, the Brewers allowed him to face just 21 batters per outing and let him throw 100 pitches just three times, all of which occurred before the first week in June. Peralta is on pace to log 160+ innings this season, around 20 more than he’s ever thrown before, and that’s assuming the Brewers don’t let him pitch deeper into games during a pennant race. The Brewers have always gotten good work from Peralta, they’re just getting much more of it than they have in the past.
Despite pitching for four Brewers teams that reached the postseason, Peralta has made just three appearances in postseason games in his career: One each in relief in 2018 and 2020, and a single start against the Braves in the 2021 NLDS. In 2023 he’s almost certain to play a prominent role on the Brewers’ pitching staff in any postseason series, however, and he might even be counted on to work deep into a game.
It would have been easy for pitching woes to doom the 2023 Brewers, who have spent large parts of the season without expected contributors Brandon Woodruff and Eric Lauer. Unexpected candidates did a lot of work to fill in the gaps, but Freddy Peralta’s big step forward is also a big part of the reason the rotation has been a strong suit for this team.
