Freddy Peralta is definitely becoming the NY Mets version of this former Yankees player

Freddy Peralta’s biggest start of the New York Mets season happened in Milwaukee Monday and the purpose wasn’t for anything more than to showcase his talents to anyone who needs a starting pitcher. He came up incredibly small yet again. One of the bigger trade busts in recent Mets history, it’s unfathomable he could be this bad.

At his worst, we figured he’d be a 5-inning pitcher with an ERA hovering around 4.00. It went over 5.00 with his most recent outing of 7 earned runs in only 5.1 innings.

His Mets tenure has gone about as sideways as it could go. What’s likely to happen next is for him to be spoken about in the same breath as a former New York Yankees player with an equally as disappointing reputation in the Big Apple but not anywhere else.

Freddy Peralta is definitely becoming the Mets version of Sonny Gray

The circumstances are somewhat similar. A top pitcher from a small market team is traded to New York and things don’t go so well. The reputation Sonny Gray gained was an inability to pitch in the Big Apple. This evolved into him being a “small market pitcher.” In actuality, disagreements with pitching coach Larry Rothschild over pitch selection as more of the real reason why he didn’t make it.

An All-Star with the Cincinnati Reds the year immediately after leaving the Yankees, Gray turned back into an exceptional pitcher post-Yankees. It only took a year and a half in New York for him to become the ultimate example of a guy who couldn’t handle the spotlight. It didn’t help with Gray doing so well in Cincinnati and then with the Minnesota Twins. His two years with the St. Louis Cardinals were okay, but this year's dominance with the Boston Red Sox seems to assure us that unless something has changed within him, the reputation of being small market-needy was completely overblown.

Peralta is only in his Gray-Yankees phase right now. Success with the Brewers prior to the Mets seems awfully familiar to Gray only more immediate. Gray at least had a 3.72 ERA in his first 11 starts after getting traded to the Yankees. It was the following year, a 4.90 ERA performance and move to the bullpen, that made him who he is in Yankees history.

Not the same yet matching closely, it’ll take Peralta landing on a smaller market team’s roster and excelling to make this a greater talking point. He certainly could end his 2026 season with a pair of reporters at his locker. One will ask the softball questions while the other pats him on the back after a tough outing.

From an extension candidate to the league leader in losses as a member of the Mets, Peralta has the added pressure of pitching for a contract. Every excuse in the playbook is available.

With only one or two starts left at most with the Mets before the trade deadline, he’ll be very much to us what Gray is to Yankees fans without the hostility.

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