Freddy Peralta’s strong run with the Tampa Bay Rays has him positioned to cash in this winter, and Ken Rosenthal believes the former Met is headed for a big free-agent market.
Peralta, who was traded by the Mets at the deadline, delivered a sharp postseason stretch for Tampa Bay. Over five appearances, he went 2-1 with a 2.95 ERA as the Rays pushed all the way to the World Series. He also came away with ALCS MVP honors after his work against the Cleveland Guardians.
Now an unrestricted free agent as of Nov. 2, Peralta has already been connected to several possible landing spots, including the Giants, Twins, White Sox and Padres. Rosenthal also mentioned the possibility of a return to Tampa Bay or even the Mets.
“Freddy Peralta is a classic example of a player who benefited from a change of teams, and not only returned to form and regained his form, but became the best version of himself that we’ve seen,” Rosenthal said on FoulTerritoryTV.
“He was throwing harder in the postseason than he had in his entire career. Also incorporated a changeup. They made a number of different adjustments with him to elicit this kind of performance from him, and it clearly worked.
“So now if you’re a team looking at him, you’re saying, ‘OK, he’s still really good.’ And you know how this works, all teams think they’re smart , all teams think, ‘Tampa Bay got he most out of him, we can do the same.’ I expect he’s going to do very well [in free agency].”
Rosenthal added that even with the possibility of a lockout, Peralta could move fast once free agency opens.
“Freddy Peralta’s agent is the group ‘ACES,’ they’re Sam and Seth Levinson out of New York,” he said. “That’s a group that generally has liked to act quickly in free agency and just kind of get things going. So I think, in Peralta’s case, yeah I think he could go quickly.”
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