Mets acquire Freddy Peralta: Brewers ace traded to New York to frontline rotation

The Mets have bolstered their rotation with one of the top starters in the game. New York is set to acquire two-time All-Star Freddy Peralta in a four-player trade with the Milwaukee Brewers, the teams announced late Wednesday. Pitcher Tobias Myers is also going to the Mets, while prospects Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams are headed back to Milwaukee.

Peralta, 29, is the latest big-name Brewer to get traded away one year prior to free agency, joining Corbin Burnes and Devin Williams. Milwaukee picked up Peralta’s bargain $8 million club option earlier this offseason, but once Brandon Woodruff accepted the $22.025 million qualifying offer, the club ran into payroll issues. The Peralta trade clears money and adds talent.

This past season was a career year for Peralta, who finished fifth in the National League Cy Young voting. He made 30 starts for the third straight season and set new career bests in wins (17), innings (176 ⅔), ERA (2.70), and WAR (5.5). That 5.5 WAR was fourth in the NL and eighth among all pitchers. Peralta is, unquestionably, one of the game’s best starting pitchers.

With the Mets, he will headline a rotation that includes some combination of standout rookie Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong, Clay Holmes, Sean Manaea, David Peterson and Kodai Senga. President of baseball operations David Stearns, who worked with Peralta in Milwaukee, had been vocal about his wish for a frontline starter for the 2026 season.

“Acquiring Freddy adds another established starter to help lead our rotation,” Stearns said in a statement. “Throughout the offseason, we sought to complement our rotation with another front-end pitcher, and we’re thrilled we are able to bring Freddy to the Mets.”

This caps a busy offseason for the Mets, which also saw them add Bo Bichette, Marcus Semien, Luis Robert Jr., Jorge Polanco, and others while bidding adieu to mainstays like Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Brandon Nimmo, and Edwin Díaz.

Even after trading away their ace, the NL Central champion Brewers boast impressive rotation depth. Their rotation depth chart currently looks like this:

1. RHP Brandon Woodruff
2. RHP Jacob Misiorowski
3. RHP Quinn Priester
4. RHP Chad Patrick
5. RHP Logan Henderson
6. LHP Robert Gasser
7. LHP DL Hall

With a typical Peralta season in 2026, the Mets will be able to make him the qualifying offer next offseason and receive a compensation draft pick should he sign elsewhere. That would offset the trade cost a bit. And, of course, there is always the possibility of a long-term extension, which is preferable to a compensation draft pick.

Peralta is entering the final option year of a five-year, $15.5 million contract extension he signed in February 2020. That contract included $8 million club options for both 2024 and 2025, making Peralta one of the game’s top pitching bargains.

Myers, 27, made six starts and 16 relief appearances for the Brewers in 2025. Over parts of two MLB seasons, he has an ERA+ of 132 and an FIP of 3.92 in 188 ⅔ innings. 

As for the Brewers’ side of things, the outfielder Williams was ranked by CBS Sports as the No. 14 prospect in the National League East. Here’s part of R.J. Anderson’s write-up: 

“Williams will test your preconceived notions. He’s a 5-foot-7 speedster who has experience at all three up-the-middle positions. Yet his offensive game isn’t built on a strong foundation of bat-to-ball skills. Rather, he’s all about the slug. Williams lifts and pulls the ball at high frequencies, allowing him to get the most from pedestrian strength markers. The downside here is that Williams swings and misses a lot (he had a 73.5% contact rate in Triple-A), meaning he’s likely to strike out around a quarter of the time in the majors. He should provide enough of everything else — power, walks, defense, and baserunning — to enjoy a big-league career. It just won’t be the one you’d expect at first blush.”

The 25-year-old Sproat is a right-hander who made four starts for the Mets last season. Across parts of two minor-league campaigns, the University of Florida product pitched to a 3.83 ERA and a 2.57 K/BB ratio in 48 starts and two relief appearances. During his brief stint in the majors in 2025, Sproat averaged 96 mph with his fastball.