Freddy Peralta may grab the biggest payday among the former Mets names on the free-agent market, but he isn’t the only ex-New York arm drawing attention.
FanSided’s Robert Murray recently ran through a group of underrated free agents, and a few familiar names popped up for Mets fans. Peralta made the cut, which is no surprise after a strong turnaround with the Tampa Bay Rays and a pair of excellent postseason outings that pushed him toward a much richer contract.
David Peterson, though, might be the more interesting name.
Murray’s piece included the line that matters most here: “...there are folks across the league who believe that Peterson's best days are still ahead of him.”
That idea is easy to see in the numbers from his stint with the Chicago Cubs. Peterson posted a 3.70 ERA there, a clear step up from the 6.09 ERA he carried with the Mets.
His FIP, however, moved in the wrong direction, rising from 3.85 to 4.06. The shift suggests he went from looking wildly unlucky in New York to only somewhat unlucky in Chicago.
The environment also seems to have helped. The overall profile was not wildly different aside from the ERA, but more ground balls were turning into outs instead of hits.
Peterson picked up only three ground-ball double plays with the Mets, then had 10 with the Cubs in what was close enough to a comparable sample that the jump stands out. He also allowed more doubles in New York, 13 compared with 10 in Chicago, and gave up four triples with the Mets while surrendering none as a Cub.
Chicago’s outfield defense appears to have played a role as well, and his hard-hit percentage also dropped with the Cubs.
That matters because Peterson has not been some forgotten project who never found his footing. He was effective in a swingman role in 2022, and in 2024 he was excellent from start to finish after opening the year on the IL. The issue in 2025 was that he seemed to run out of gas around the 120-inning mark.
This past year, he got through 148.1 innings without wearing down, and that should only help his case. Spotrac has him projected at around a one-year, $10 million deal, though the comparison list is all over the map. It includes Cal Quantil, who signed for less than $2 million on a recent one-year deal, and Zac Gallen, who got a bit more than $20 million to stay with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Peterson looks like the kind of pitcher who could land a one- or two-year deal with an option attached to that second season. If the league really believes his best work is still coming, that could end up reflecting poorly on the Mets, who never fully unlocked the ceiling that made him a first-round pick in the first place. The infield defense was not always a disaster, and there were times when Peterson looked like a true mid-rotation starter.
Peralta is likely to command the biggest contract of the bunch. Peterson may not be far behind in terms of opportunity.
If he lands in the right setup, there’s a real chance he becomes the kind of reliable every-fifth-day starter that always felt just out of reach in New York. The 2026 Mets, at least, were not the ideal place to make that happen.
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