In retrospect, conventional wisdom might not be all that wise. Just check out this postseason.
The Atlanta Braves should have started Chris Sale in Game 2 of the division series against the Dodgers. They didn’t. They won.
The Braves then had an edge with Sale starting Game 3. They didn’t. They lost that game, and they were eliminated in the next game.
The Milwaukee Brewers should have considered trading rookie pitcher Logan Henderson in a package for Tarik Skubal, a win-now proposition for a team that has dominated the regular season but had not appeared in the World Series in 44 years. They didn’t. Skubal and the Dodgers missed the World Series, and Henderson started Game 2 for the Brewers on Saturday, helping them move within two victories from their first championship.
That brings us to Freddy Peralta, who starts Game 3 for the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday. Peralta was one of the top pitchers in the majors for the Brewers last year, and he has been one of the top pitchers in the majors since the Rays acquired him from the New York Mets three months ago, but in between he performed so poorly for the Mets that he cannot really explain why.
“Sometimes I ask the same question myself,” Peralta said.
So poorly that, when the league’s website ranked the most impactful trades at the deadline, the Peralta deal did not make the top 10, behind trades for six other starting pitchers: Skubal, Casey Mize and Robbie Ray to the San Diego Padres, Kevin Gausman and Clay Holmes to the Chicago Cubs, and Jose Soriano to the Toronto Blue Jays.
Conventional wisdom? No big deal.
For the Mets, Peralta put up a 4.99 ERA and a negative WAR. For the Rays, he put up an 0.79 ERA in his last six starts of the regular season and a 1.07 ERA so far in the postseason, honored as American League Championship Series MVP.
“I feel like he’s kind of come back to being Freddy Peralta with us,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said.
Peralta went 17-6 with a 2.70 earned-run average for Milwaukee last year, leading the National League in victories and posting 5.5 WAR, third behind Cristopher Sanchez of the Philadelphia Phillies and Cy Young winner Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
If you wonder why the Brewers would trade Peralta, well, you don’t know the Brewers.
Peralta was approaching free agency, and the Brewers routinely trade All-Star pitchers like that for prospects: Corbin Burnes, Josh Hader, Devin Williams.
This is how the Brewers restock: The Burnes trade brought two pieces of this World Series team, pitcher DL Hall and infielder Joey Ortiz. The Hader trade brought Game 3 starter Robert Gasser and journeyman outfielder Estuery Ruiz, and within a subsequent three-team trade, the Brewers swiped All-Star catcher William Contreras for Ruiz.
The Mets wanted Peralta for what they considered an inevitable playoff run, with the largest Opening Day payroll of any major league team, the Dodgers included. The Mets finished in last place, and Peralta’s ERA exceeded 6.00 in each of the two months preceding the trade deadline.
“I was feeling bad,” Peralta said, “because I couldn’t do anything.”
The adjustments the Mets asked him to make, he said, were “a little different” than the ones that reversed the course of his season with the Rays.
The Rays let him pitch from the stretch, as he had in Milwaukee. They modified his delivery, including having him start it from the third-base side of the pitching rubber. His fastball got faster: 94 mph with the Mets, hitting 97 mph in the playoffs.
“We see that he’s in his element, man,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “That’s Fastball Freddy.”
In Milwaukee, it’s all love for Peralta. The fans even cheered his bullpen session there before Game 1.
He’ll start Game 3 in Tampa Bay and, after that, who knows, but he would be lined up to start a potential Game 7 in Milwaukee.
“I know how special it is to pitch on this mound here in Milwaukee,” Peralta said. “I would like to pitch here during the postseason.”
He would have liked to pitch in New York during the postseason too.
“They had a lot of big expectations for me, the fans too, in New York,” he said. “They were waiting for something great from me.”
Conventional wisdom can boomerang. The conventional wisdom on Peralta’s free agency in the spring: he should make more in free agency than any pitcher besides Skubal; in the summer: this is a bad year to take into free agency; in the fall: he should make more in free agency than any pitcher besides Skubal.
But, given what happened in New York, what were the realistic expectations in Tampa Bay?
“I was able to go to a new team that probably needed me for …” Peralta said, his voice trailing off.
The World Series?
Peralta beamed.
“Crazy,” he said. “For the World Series, yeah.”
The post Conventional wisdom whiffed on Freddy Peralta, and the World Series proves it appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
