The hard truth about Freddy Peralta’s NY Mets future beyond 2026

Everyone wants to talk about an extension with Freddy Peralta when all he wants to do is settle into his new environment. The newest big addition to the New York Mets franchise was introduced this week and everyone is already abuzz about what his contract will look like.

There’s a hard truth about this situation. The David Stearns-led Mets have been reluctant to pay out any significant money toward a starting pitcher on a long-term deal. Peralta is a budding ace who’d probably be better described as a number one starter based on last year’s results. How he does in 2026 will say a lot about how much money he gets this winter. 

A good year, he might outprice himself. A bad year, the Mets might not even want him back.

Freddy Peralta doesn’t seem destined to stay with the Mets unless a few other plans fall through

On Stearns’ vision board, what does the 2027 rotation look like? The Mets are surely going to be a match for Tarik Skubal although the need to deal with Scott Boras might be too great for them to push hard. What’s more, it would be an extreme to go from passing over those mammoth contracts for starting pitchers to signing a player who might get the largest of all-time for his position.

Peralta will get a more modest contract. It’s too early to tell exactly what he’d get. Something from the wide range of Ranger Suarez’s $130 million to Dylan Cease’s $210 million makes sense. The Mets would probably continue to prefer fewer years. Four years with a higher AAV sounds reasonable.

If Peralta continues to improve and shows he actually is an ace-level arm, he’s going to get offers for five or six years easily. This is when the Mets might back off. He’ll turn 30 in mid-2026 and to pay him through ages 35 and 36 would get a little complicated and uncomfortable. That’s not old, but it’s also risky and not something they’ve done a whole lot.

The other scenario, where Peralta doesn’t pitch so well, actually seems to make him more feasible to keep. An extremely bad year wouldn’t even negate the possibility of a reunion. What about something more on par with what he has done? In 2023, he was 12-10 with a 3.86 ERA. That plus a noticeable enough dip in strikeouts and maybe some other red flags would have other ball clubs less tempted to take on the risk of a longer deal. How would the Mets feel? It could be like buying dip on Wall Street.

Peralta may end up as the second-best starting pitcher available in the next class behind only Skubal. What’ll be interesting is how many actually do end up joining. Michael King, Brandon Woodruff, and Nick Pivetta are all potential or guaranteed free agents who won’t have the qualifying offer available to them.

It’s a deep free agent class of starting pitchers next year with the Mets likely to have several spots to fill. They’ll go after one big ticket item for sure. Just because he’s on the Mets now doesn’t seem to make much of a difference as to whether or not he’ll stay.