Looking at this Brewers season, it’s difficult to pinpoint any single factor that led to their immense success, but it would be impossible to go through that conversation without mentioning Freddy Peralta.
Peralta’s the team’s ace and he’s proved beyond any doubt that he’s deserving of the title, performing like one of the best pitchers in the league. Since May 18, Peralta has made 22 starts and pitched to a 2.65 ERA, tallying 13 wins in the process to just three losses. Where does this stand in relation
to the rest of the league, and his own career norms?
Around the League
Since May 18, Peralta’s 2.65 ERA ranks sixth in baseball. He sits behind Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal, Ranger Suarez, Cristopher Sánchez, and Gavin Williams. Comparing him to the rest of these names, Peralta has a few stats that stick out. First, he has surrendered the lowest groundball rate of any of those pitchers, and second, he’s only a few decimal points behind Skenes for the best strikeout rate.
That strikeout rate might be what elevates Peralta into that category with Skenes and Skubal. Peralta lacks the velocity compared to those two, averaging 94.6 mph on his fastball, about four ticks below Skenes. But his ability to dominate batters, consistently, has turned his season into a scintillating showcase. Garrett Crochet and Skenes are the only pitchers with a better strikeout rate than Peralta and an ERA below 3.00. On its own, that won’t be enough to elevate Peralta into Cy Young discussion, but it highlights how elite he’s been this year.
Part of how Peralta has put together such a fantastic year is his ability to limit hard contact, as well as his strikeout ability. Peralta ranks third among qualified pitchers with a 32.5% hard-hit rate. Even when Peralta isn’t racking up strikeouts, batters have struggled to consistently make hard contact. Oddly enough, this is all happening with batters taking a staunch plate approach. Batters don’t chase Peralta’s pitches out of the zone at a remarkable rate, but even so, mostly swinging at pitches in the zone, they can’t match Peralta’s stuff.
Broadly, “Fastball Freddy” is known for, well, his fastball. In fact, his 109 Stuff+ on this pitch is a career best. In the majors this year, it’s good for the fifth-best mark, behind Skubal, Hunter Brown, Ryan Pepiot, and Crochet. Perhaps surprising in this list is that he has the second-best Location+, only trailing Skubal, with a 104 mark. Given Peralta’s higher walk rate, he might not generally be considered the best command pitcher, but it’s easy to buy into the idea that the placement of his pitches has abetted his ability to diminish the hard contact he allows.
Peralta’s Career
Let’s take another look at that 109 Stuff+ mark, a career best for Peralta. That’s his highwater mark on his fastball, but the rest of his arsenal has taken a step forward, too. A 114 Stuff+ on his slider is an eight-point increase just from last year! His curveball, at 105, is a personal best as well, if that wasn’t enough.
Peralta’s endurance, consistency, and reliability might not be the “flashiest” traits, but they’re uniquely valuable in today’s game. Peralta’s on track to pass his career-best 173 2/3 innings from last season, marking the third consecutive year in which he will surpass 165 IP. He’s also on the verge of reaching 200 strikeouts for the third straight year. There are few pitchers who can match that track record.
With a great team behind him, Peralta’s already reached a career-best 17 wins. Even in his 2021 season when he had a 2.81 ERA over 28 starts, he only tallied 10 wins, and in recent seasons he’s finished with 12 and 11. While wins isn’t a stat that necessarily indicates the pitcher’s quality in a vacuum, it does resonate with how his success has combined with his team’s this year.
It’s been an impeccable season all around for Peralta, but let’s sum it up with one stat: a 2.65 ERA. That’s his best mark, ever. This comes after a run of three seasons with ERAs floating in the range around 3.50, so it’s commendable in its own right for finding such success after years of posting solid, not elite, numbers. The Brewers’ rotation as a whole might not seem overpowering compared to some of the other World Series contenders, but with Peralta pitching some of his best baseball, it will be a show when he gets on the mound in October.
