Weighing the Peralta Deal: What the Mets Gave Up to Get Him, What They Get Back Now

It's no surprise that the Mets unloaded Freddy Peralta today, sending him to the Tampa Bay Rays for three prospects. Peralta was awful for the Mets, a starter who ran up pitch counts so quickly that he frequently didn't make it into the fifth inning, let alone out of it.

Peralta's final Mets stat line is plain ugly: An ERA of 4.99, a run and a quarter greater than his lifetime record, a .788 OPS against, 17 homers and 31 doubles in 22 starts.

It's easy to say that this was an aberration, given his previous history. But if you looked at things closely, (and we hate to say we told you so), Peralta was never going to be the ace the Mets thought they were getting when they sent Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams to the Brewers for him. Peralta's history is that he is a five-inning pitcher, not what the team needed after a 2025 season of having to shuttle relievers between Flushing and Syracuse because the starters couldn't make it halfway through a game. Of course, the Mets also expected a better five innings than he gave them.

So it's absolutely understandable, with Peralta set to become a free agent at season's end. that David Stearns put the "For Sale" sign over Peralta's uniform and took what he thought was the best he could get.

And, truth be told, I'm somewhat intrigued by the three, although obtaining prospects is always a crap shoot, specially ones currently toiling in the low minors.

Scouts seem the highest on outfielder Aiden Smith, who will now be playing for his third organization. Drafted by the Mariners, he was part of the 2024 trade that sent Randy Arozorena from St. Petersburg to Seattle. But after hitting .288 in 2024, Smith regressed last year, as pitchers learned he couldn't hit the breaking stuff, and 2026 seems to be a repeat of 2025. He's hitting only .209, with 85 strikeouts in 235 at-bats, about the same rate that he struck out last year. That's a red flag for me: two seasons of struggling to hit minor-league curve balls and sinkers does not bode well for promotion to the majors.

Gary Gill Hill, who grew up in New Rochelle, is a pitcher who appears to be more hittable as he works his way up the minor league levels. Gill Hill also regressed in 2025 after e productive 2024. His fastball hits 93-95 on the gun, but his best pitches appear to be a cutter and a sweeper. At AA this year, he has only struck out 61 in 81.1 innings while yielding 10 home runs among 99 hits. Nothing that shouts instant promotion.

I'm most intrigued -- although the scouts aren't -- by Emilien Pitre, a second baseman with an interesting back story. A French Canadian who grew up in a Montreal suburb, Pitre was a star as a teenager, playing on Canadian provincial teams and the national junior team, Scouts shied away from him because of his small stature -- he weighted 130 pounds in high school. Knowing he needed to develop in college, and probably in the U.S. to get noticed, Pitre learned English in Ontario during the COVID pandemic and headed the the University of Kentucky, where he did get scouts' notice and the Rays drafted him in 2024.

Pitre has hit at all levels and, unlike the other two, has shown steady progress. Promoted to AA in the middle of this year, he has been tearing up the Southern League, with a .323 batting average and a .943 OPS. A scouting report says he has a mature approach, excellent hand-eye coordination, great strike-zone awareness and contact to all fields. Defensively, he was viewed as one of the most technically sound infielders in the Rays' system.

While he won't be ready this year and maybe not the next, he does seem like someone who could take over second base in Flushing.

But the real question is not what did the Mets get for Peralta, but whether you would have traded Sprout and Williams for Smith, Gill Hill and Pitre? Sprout was major league ready, although his stats this year have been close to Peralta's. Williams's OPS at AAA Nashville this year (.726) is similar to what it was last year at Syracuse, although his on-base percentage is better and his slugging is worse. Williams is also sort of a man without a position -- the Brewers have played him all over the infield, as well as in center field. Nevertheless, Sprout and Williams were rated higher than Smith, Gill Hill and Pitre, so on paper it looks like a net loss. We'll just have to wait and see how things turn out.