What should be expected of Peralta in 2025?
The Brewers’ rotation will look quite different in 2025, but, assuming Brandon Woodruff doesn’t return to form from day one, Freddy Peralta will yet again be in place as the team’s ace. What should be expected of him after a sometimes dominant, occasionally inconsistent season?
Peralta’s 2024 looks good at first glance. His 3.68 ERA was the fourth season in a row with an ERA below 3.90. His strikeout rate dipped ever so slightly to 10.36 K/9, but it was still the ninth-best among qualified pitchers.
In a more pessimistic view, his walk rate jumped to 3.52 per nine innings pitched, his highest rate since 2020. His 3.78 SIERA was his highest since 2019. The past two years have seen him give up much more dangerous quality of contact, as well, in both barrel rate and hard-hit rate.
There were moments in the season when those free passes caught up to him, but overall, this was still a solid season for the ace. As the Brewers refashion their rotation, will Peralta maintain his top form and carry the staff?
The underlying numbers to Peralta’s profile have dipped from his elite seasons in 2021 and 2022 to now, exemplified by his rise in xERA from 2.66 to 3.88 over those four seasons. But with his ability to generate whiffs at an elite level, he’s still a strikeout machine.
His whiff rate of 31% last year ranked in the 86th percentile per BaseballSavant. His four-seamer and slider are the key pitches to that success, but it’s notable that they both generated fewer swing-and-misses than in 2023. In compensation for this, Peralta got more whiffs on both his changeup and curveball.
His elite fastball, though, is obviously his foundation. His 112 Stuff+ on the pitch ranked seventh-best in baseball for four-seamers. This gives any pitcher a high floor, but will the rest of the arsenal be enough? His slider (98 Stuff+), curveball (104), and changeup (84) weren’t exactly the most dominant secondaries by this specific metric.
Even if the raw stuff metrics don’t love his secondaries, he still limited batters to a .203 batting average on his slider, .218 on his changeup, and .182 on his curveball.
Looking at next year’s projections, it still seems reasonable to expect Peralta to continue with this type of performance. Steamer has his statistics projected like this:
3.76 ERA, 3.82 FIP, 10.39 K/9, and 3.19 BB/9
Most of those numbers are well within reason. That line would mean his walk rate would normalize after a spike this year, which would be a considerable help after a career-high 68 walks.
Peralta reached a career-high 173 2⁄3 innings, and his value as a workhorse shouldn’t be overlooked. Managing those walks would continue to build on how regularly he works deep into games. Entering his age-29 season, Peralta will be well prepared to once again lead a Brewers rotation chasing a division crown.
Stats courtesy of FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.