A NY Mets conversation fans seem to have completely stopped discussing

The trade that brought Freddy Peralta to Queens gave the New York Mets an ace for 2026, at least on paper. 2025 was the best year of his career, resulting in a 2.70 ERA and 3.64 FIP over 176.2 innings and 5.4 rWAR. Initially seen as a one-year rental given his impending free agency in 2027, it didn't take long for rumors of an extension to start swirling. Even though the two parties failed to come to an agreement before Opening Day, the chances of a deal getting done were still plausible but more recent data suggests he may still hit the market at the end of the year.

Freddy Peralta's lukewarm start to the year has tabled extension talks with the Mets

Across his first three starts as a Met, he has pitched to a 4.80 ERA and has yet to pitch six innings. Despite his relatively low innings total, his starts have been laborious, averaging 91 pitches per outing. This inefficiency is largely due to a lack of control, as just 42.5% of his pitches have landed in the strike zone so far, a weakness he has had to pitch around for his whole career.

His whiff (35.5%) and strikeout rates (29.7%) are still elite and he has only walked 7.8% of batters faced but it's possible that these qualities will regress as the season goes on. If he continues to miss pitches out of the zone and get behind in counts, it makes sense that he will give up more free passes. As for missing bats, it should be a point of concern that his four-seam fastball has lost some velocity and is averaging just 93.5 mph, although its 17.8 inches of induced vertical break continue to allow it to overperform its sagging velocity.

There has been at least one instance of the Mets getting overly exuberant about bringing a pitcher back on a big contract after just one year of success and a new conservative approach to managing the payroll is likely the reason why there haven't been more updates on a Peralta deal.

If Peralta disappoints and hits the free market at the end of the year, the team won't be hard-pressed for starting pitching talent, even if some of their top prospects clearly have some work to do before being big-league ready. On the other hand, if he hits a stride and has another successful year, chances are he'd prefer to see what other teams are willing to offer him.

It's hard to think of a middle ground where it'd be mutually beneficial for both sides to do an extension of some kind and a possible labor stoppage in 2027 only complicates the matter. If there was a time to strike a deal, it likely would've been before the start of the season and given Peralta's rocky start, his future with the Mets is even more uncertain.