1 prospect each NL Central team could offer NY Mets for Freddy Peralta

This season hasn't gone the way anyone was hoping for the New York Mets. The club is in dead last in the NL East, and that's led to plenty of speculation about possible trade ideas even as the August 3 trade deadline remains months away. No player on the Mets roster is a more obvious trade chip than right-hander Freddy Peralta, and the NL Central-leading Cubs have already been connected to the righty by Bruce Levine of The Score, though Levine later walked back those comments.

Even if Levine's comments may have been overstated, Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic recently placed Peralta near the top of a list of potential Cubs trade targets in the starting pitching market. While the Cubs are at the top of their division, all five of the division's clubs are above .500 and still more or less in the race for the playoffs. Peralta could be an asset for any of them, and any of them could have prospects the Mets would be interested in. Here's one from each club:

The Cubs have an ideal fit for the Mets' needs in Pedro Ramirez

The Cubs are the most obvious fit for Peralta in the NL Central, thanks to all the pitching injuries they've suffered this year. Cade Horton is out for the year, Matthew Boyd recently had surgery to repair a torn meniscus, and Justin Steele suffered a setback in his rehab from elbow surgery. The team is in clear need of an impact starter to pair with Shota Imanaga at the front of the rotation, and Peralta is certainly that.

As for what the Mets could get from the Cubs in return for Peralta's services, infield prospect Pedro Ramirez is an ideal fit. Ramirez is a 22-year-old infielder who plays second and third base at Triple-A for the Cubs. He's blocked at both of those positions in the majors, however, meaning some other team is likely to reap the benefits of the breakout season he's having this year. Previously a hit-over-power prospect, he's enjoyed a power surge this year with nine homer in his first 37 games.

The best thing the Brewers can offer the Mets might be what they already had

There's little question that the Brewers could use a player like Freddy Peralta at the top of their rotation, because they enjoyed his services for years before trading him to the Mets this past winter (alongside Tobias Myers) in exchange for top prospect Jett Williams and right-hander Brandon Sproat. That history makes a deal incredibly unlikely to come together this summer, as it would require president of baseball operations David Stearns admitting defeat at the hands of his old team.

Perhaps things would be different if the Brewers had as clearly strong a fit for the Mets' needs as the Cubs have, but that simply isn't the case. The best-suited trade chip to come back to New York in a hypothetical Peralta trade would be Williams himself, who is off to a decent start in the minors this year despite an early-season power outage. Even so, it would be hard to view dealing Peralta back to Milwaukee for Williams as anything other than a colossal failure for Stearns and the Mets.

The Cardinals can offer an immediate upgrade to the Mets' catching corps

The Cardinals didn't enter the season expecting to compete, but they've found themselves firmly in the NL playoff conversation nearly two months into the season. Whether they'll be able to maintain this strong start remains to be seen, and it's entirely possible that they'll revert to their previous plans of rebuilding by the time the summer rolls around. If they do continue competing, however, Peralta would give them a legitimate front-end playoff starter for a mostly young and unproven rotation.

Given that the Cardinals entered this year looking towards the future, they might not be interested in trading away much prospect talent. One exception to that could be catching prospect Jimmy Crooks, who had a brief cup of coffee in the majors last year. Crooks didn't hit much in that cameo, but the team's #7 prospect according to MLB Pipeline is a well-regarded defensive catcher who could pair well with Francisco Alvarez and is blocked at the big league level by Ivan Herrera and Pedro Pages.

The Reds might struggle to offer the Mets what they're looking for

It's easy to see why the Reds might want to add Peralta to their rotation. Hunter Greene underwent elbow surgery back in March and is expected to be out for at least half the year. That leaves the team without a high-end starter for the time being, and come playoff time Greene and Peralta could be a deadly one-two at the top of the rotation.

While Peralta might make sense for the Reds, however, the Reds might not make sense for the Mets. Cincinnati surely wouldn't be willing to part with top prospect Alfredo Duno, leaving 2025 first-rounder Steele Hall as the best prospect the Mets could expect to receive from them. He's just a few games into his pro career at this point, and while Fangraphs has suggested he could be a top-100 prospect next year, he may be too far from the majors for the Mets' tastes.

The Pirates could offer the Mets a big league ready starter to replace Peralta

The Pirates arguably have less of a need for a starting pitcher like Peralta than their other NL Central rivals, with Paul Skenes at the front of the rotation and a deep group of arms behind him. That doesn't mean they couldn't use him, however. Bubba Chandler has struggled to start the year, Jared Jones remains out of commission, and all it would take is an injury to someone like Skenes or Mitch Keller for the vaunted Pittsburgh rotation to suddenly look vulnerable.

Adding Peralta would give the Pirates additional depth in the front of their rotation, and their excess of pitching talent could fuel the return from the Mets' perspective. Perhaps the most interesting fit would be left-hander Hunter Barco, a 25-year-old lefty who has struggled in limited MLB chances but ranks as the #77 prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline. The Pirates went all-in for 2026, and the Mets would surely love to take advantage of that urgency by adding a talented arm like Barco.

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