Welcome to the 2025 edition of Ranking the Rockies, where we take a look back at every player to log playing time for the Rockies in 2025. The purpose of this list is to provide a snapshot of the player in context.
The “Ranking” is an organizing principle that’s drawn from Baseball Reference’s WAR (rWAR). It’s not something the staff debated. We’ll begin with the player with the lowest rWAR and end up with the player with the highest.
No. 51, Luis Peralta (-0.9 rWAR)
This was surely not the season Luis Peralta had hoped for.
After a promising 2024 that saw the lefty reliever pitch in 12.1 innings with a 28.6K% and a final ERA of 0.73, both Peralta and the Rockies were looking forward to building on that in 2025. After all, he had given up just one run as a rookie.
However, if anything in life is true, it is that bullpens are notoriously volatile, and Peralta was unable to avoid a sophomore slump.
In comparison, this year, Peralta had 19.0 IP with just a 5.08 K% and a ghastly 9.47 ERA.
He spent much of the season jockeying between Denver and Triple-A Albuquerque. Peralta kicked off 2025 with a 7.56 ERA over nine appearances before being sent down.
His numbers did not improve with the Isotopes, as he earned a 9.09 ERA over 34 appearances and struggled to make adjustments.
Peralta returned to the Rockies in mid-August, and things got worse. In his first outing, he surrendered three earned runs and was unable to record a single out.
Then he settled in a bit, going through five scoreless appearances before his struggles returned. After that, he allowed nine earned runs on eight hits with two of those being home runs. Adding to that, he did not manage a K while walking five batters.
Peralta was then placed on the Injured List due to hip information before making a brief return stint starting on September 24.
The final week was not promising. In one outing, he faced six batters in one inning. He walked two, struck out one, and allowed a hit without any runs scoring.
Peralta understands that such peaks and valleys are just part of baseball. As he said in late August, baseball is a challenging sport.
“Baseball is a sport you want to have a lot of success in,” he said through interpreter Edwin Perez, “but it’s not always going to go that way. Baseball is a sport that you’re going to have to go through your lows. And for me, the start of the season, it didn’t start as well as I wanted it to.”
The issues, Peralta said, appeared to stem from his mechanics.
“I think my mechanics were not where they needed to be,” he said. ”I think especially when it came to the command of the ball, I wasn’t able to come in as well as I wanted to.“
For Peralta, getting a first-pitch strike is key.
“I think when I throw the first pitch in the strike [zone], when I’m facing these batters, I’m having better results in that. And I think that’s showing up here in the major leagues, so I just continue to get that first pitch strike, and continue to make those adjustments, and it seems to work.”
There were also some over-rotation issues.
”I was over-rotating when I was throwing the ball, lifting my leg. I think I was over rotating to first base,“ Peralta said.
He got a tip about the issue from a video sent to him by his father, who encouraged him not to 0ver-rotate.
“Thankfully, it’s the adjustment that has worked for me,” he said.
Interim manager Warren Schaeffer said of the reliever, “I think he went through some confidence issues early in the season, unneeded, because he’s a really good pitcher.”
As for Peralta, it’s all about learning.
“It’s just been, overall, a learning experience and being able to grow.”
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