Freddy Peralta gave the Milwaukee Brewers a career year in his final season there: a league-best 17 wins with a 2.70 ERA and 204 strikeouts. He finished top five in National League Cy Young voting and arguably should have been higher. He made his second All-Star game and posted a WAR of 5.5. By that measure, only three NL pitchers were more valuable: Cristopher Sanchez, Paul Skenes, and Andrew Abbott.
Among Buster Olney’s top 10 starters of 2026, however, Peralta was not listed. Instead, the Mets’ new ace received an honorable mention along with nine other arms who didn’t make the cut.
Olney’s (nonetheless objectively reasonable) top 10 leaves Peralta out in the cold
Olney’s assembles his top 10 as follows:
- Tarik Skubal
- Paul Skenes
- Yoshinobu Yamamoto
- Garrett Crochet
- Cristopher Sanchez
- Hunter Brown
- Max Fried
- Logan Webb
- Chris Sale
- Jacob DeGrom
Actually, there’s nothing wrong with that list. Among those top four or so spots, there is no debating. If there is one name that seems like an overplay, compared to someone like Peralta, it’s Webb.
Webb hasn’t posted an ERA under three since 2022 (2.90), and last season was his first since 2021 averaging at least a strikeout per inning, but he is also one of the most reliable starters in the game. Webb has clipped 200 innings each of the past three seasons, and 190-plus in four straight. Last year, his 224 strikeouts led the league.
It’s also true that Peralta doesn’t have a consistent track record of posting ERAs 3.50 or below; he has done so only twice in eight seasons. While Webb arguably has not dominated like 2025 Peralta in any season, he has remained under that ERA threshold since 2021 and has a superior workload to fall back on. A rarity in today’s game, Webb averaged over six innings per start while Peralta clocked in at about five and a third.
Where Peralta does have him beat, clearly, is in strikeout rate, and last season, in WAR (Webb finished at 3.9). In K-rate, Peralta has exceeded Webb’s career-best 2025 mark of 9.7 every season he has played. That includes 10.4 per nine last year.
While Webb has an obvious advantage in control, Peralta is far more effective in limiting hits. In fact, Webb led the league with 210 hits allowed in ’25 – a higher number than his innings pitched. He has given up 200-plus in three of his last three seasons. Peralta held hitters to a .193 average.
Because Webb doesn’t allow walks or longballs, his FIP, a popular alternative stat which excludes non-home-run hits, would seem to make him the advantage: 2.60 to Peralta’s 3.64 last season, with similar gaps in past years. But that ignores the stark difference in hittability.
Enough rambling on Peralta versus Webb. Coming off the former’s elite season, it feels like a slight, but the latter does have a case. If there is one thing can give you, it’s consistent volume. The Rangers’ DeGrom is also a questionable inclusion over Peralta given that he had not pitched a full season since 2019. He rebounded with a solid 2025, pitching to a 2.97 ERA and 9.6 K-rate per nine, but his 2.9 WAR is barely half.
Counting on the now 37-year-old righty to return somewhere near his elite former self seems like a stretch.
The other honorables: Blake Snell; Zach Wheeler and Gerrit Cole, both projected to miss time returning from injury; Bryan Woo; Dylan Cease, he of the 4.55 ERA last season (career 3.88); Abbott; Carlos Rodon; Kevin Gausman; and Cole Ragans (4.67 ERA in 2025, career 3.66).
This is not to say that others don’t have a top-10 case, but certainly Peralta appears to belong at the top of the honorable mentions list if not the tail end of the list proper.
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