One day after trading for Freddy Peralta, New York Mets general manager David Stearns spoke about the blockbuster deal.
Mets Trade For Freddy Peralta
The Mets have been busy the last week.
After failing to sign Kyle Tucker, the Mets pivoted and The team then followed that up by trading for White Sox center fielder Luis Robert Jr.
After acquiring the position players, the Mets were missing one important piece: a starting pitcher.
That changed when the Mets acquired Freddy Peralta from the Brewers. New York sent prospects Jett Williams and Brandon Sproat to the Brewers for Peralta and fellow pitcher Tobias Myers.
Peralta is coming off a career year with the Brewers. The 29-year-old posted a 17-6 record with a 2.70 ERA with 204 strikeouts.
Peralta becomes the ace of a pitching staff that includes Nolan McLean, Sean Manaea, Clay Holmes, David Peterson, and Kodai Senga.
David Stearns Talks Freddy Peralta Trade
How did the Peralta trade come to be?
During a media call on Thursday, Stearns discussed the origins of the Peralta trade, which began right after the season ended.
“Similar to a lot of discussions that can happen over the course of the offseason, these began in November when the offseason started, and they took a lot of twists and turns, and involved a lot of different names at different points, different constructs, different sizes of deals,” Stearns said. “I think talks probably accelerated over the last few days and ultimately we were able to get it across the line for both sides last night.”
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The Mets made the move for Peralta, knowing he’s entering the final year of his contract. Stearns would like to keep Peralta, but any conversations they have will remain private.
“I’m not going to speculate on that on day one here. We’ll let Freddy get acclimated to the organization,” Stearns explained. “Any conversations that we may have or have in the future, I think we’ll do our best to keep private and not talk about publicly.”
The Mets are still a work in progress. They let Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz leave in free agency while trading away Jeff McNeil and Brandon Nimmo.
The Mets finished second in the NL East a season ago and missed the playoffs. Stearns believes the team must continue to improve each day if it wants to sit on top of the division.
“We’ve got a really tough division,” Stearns added. “We’ve got some really good teams and some teams that are getting better. Until we win a division, we can’t claim that we’re at the top. So, we’ve got to keep going, and we’ve got to keep working.”