In year eight, Freddy Peralta is having yet another stellar season for the Milwaukee Brewers. 15-5 with a 2.68 ERA and 160 strikeouts, he is finally gaining recognition from league-wide evaluators. Going from unranked to No. 10 in MLB.com’s latest pitcher power rankings, Peralta has also made himself a bona fide top three contender for NL Cy Young.
Milwaukee Brewers ace climbs the ranks of national esteem
While less so than in other sports, team performance is still a factor, if an unacknowledged one, in award voting. As the ace on baseball’s best team by record, Peralta should attract at least a cursory glance. His actual numbers merit far more than that.
In both traditional aesthetics and in WAR, Peralta checks all the boxes. He leads MLB in wins and is tied atop the NL in games started. The Cy Young is supposed to be a workhorse, and Peralta is one. He’s also fourth in the league in ERA, perhaps the Holy Grail of Cy Young evaluation metrics, and 10th in strikeouts. Among NL pitchers in the top 10 in ERA, his K/9 rate ranks fourth. Zack Wheeler, who leads everyone at 11.7 K/9 and had been a Cy Young favorite, is done for the year and no longer in the race.
Peralta’s 4.4 WAR is also sixth, making him a competitive candidate in what has become a critical leaderboard for earning votes.
His No. 10 spot in MLB.com’s pitcher rankings might suggest that Peralta is closer to a top five nominee, but actually, that makes him third on the list among NL pitchers. Ahead of him are Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes and Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sanchez.
Certainly, Peralta should not be ranked ahead of those two, who are No. 1 and No .2, respectively, in pitching WAR in all of baseball (6.2 for Skenes, 5.9 for Sanchez). Although he can’t figure out the Brewers, Skenes leads the pack with a 2.07 ERA. Despite his 8-9 record, which would be the first ever losing mark for Cy Young starter*, the rest of his resume makes him the runaway favorite. An implied probability of 95%, or -2000 odds, are among his longest in the betting market.
*(The Dodgers’ Eric Gagne won the award with a 2-3 record in 2003, but he was a relief pitcher.)
Still, with Wheeler out of the picture, Peralta should scoop up plenty of third-place votes on the ballot. With a strong finish on MLB’s best team, he could steal some No. 2 tallies from Sanchez. It would be Peralta’s first time attracting votes on a Cy Young ballot; in his previous career-best season, 2021, he pitched only 144.1 innings or he might have drawn some attention.
Finally acknowledged by national consensus, he’ll next have the chance to show his stuff against Toronto’s powerful offense, ranked third in the majors with a .769 OPS, on Friday.
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