The New York Mets have been one of the worst teams in baseball since last June, and nothing they have attempted to do to fix the problems has worked.
The starting pitching is bad. The hitting is awful. The bullpen has been an adventure.
Nothing has gone right for the Mets in spite of their league-leading payroll, and they are expected to be sellers at the MLB trade deadline as a result.
Pitcher Freddy Peralta is the top name most feel will be moved between now and Aug. 3, but with the right-hander owning a 4.68 ERA and headed for free agency next winter, some have wondered if New York will actually be able to get anything of significance in return for him.
Will Sammon of The Athletic answered that question in a recent piece.
“Multiple scouts and executives who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak freely on the topic said the Mets should end up doing fine on a return for Peralta,” Sammon wrote. “It’s unlikely they’ll score the equivalent of what they shipped to the Milwaukee Brewers over the winter for Peralta: pitcher Brandon Sproat and infielder Jett Williams, two top-100 prospects. But they should do OK.”
I don’t think anyone anticipated New York to receive the type of return it surrendered for Peralta last January. But so long as the Mets get something decent, they should be happy.
After all, Peralta is all but guaranteed to walk during the offseason anyway, and with New York out of playoff contention, it should just be content with landing a couple of prospects to restock its farm system.
Peralta spent the first eight years of his big-league career with the Brewers, where he made a pair of All-Star appearances and registered a 3.59 ERA.
The 30-year-old had a career season in 2025, logging a 2.70 ERA while racking up 204 strikeouts over 176.2 innings of work, but for most of his MLB tenure, Peralta has never been a true ace.
The Mets thought they were getting a No. 1 starter when they acquired Peralta, but they quickly found out that was simply not the case.
That being said, Peralta has never been quite this pedestrian, as his lowest ERA since becoming a full-time starter in 2021 was 3.86, which he tallied in 2023.
