While Trade Rumors Persist, Freddy Peralta Leads By Bringing Mets Together

CITI FIELD (New York) – While speculation about his future continues to circulate outside the clubhouse, Freddy Peralta isn’t paying any attention. Instead, the veteran right-hander has focused on something much closer to home: bringing his teammates together. “He made this place his house right away,” Juan Soto told me on Thursday about Peralta’s positive impact this season. “He’s fitting in with all the players. He’s bringing the energy.” If the New York Mets (30-38) continue to slide down the National League East and Wild Card standings, Peralta is their top candidate to be dealt before the Aug. 3 trade deadline. Despite that possibility, Peralta has emerged as one of the players most responsible for building chemistry within the Mets clubhouse through team brunches and dinners, road gatherings and family-oriented events away from the ballpark. For Peralta, tuning out external noise and investing in relationships inside the clubhouse are essential to the team’s success. Rather than following social-media chatter or trade speculation, the starting pitcher has concentrated on creating a support system for teammates navigating the grind of the 162-game season. “I’m not too involved in social media,” Peralta told me at his locker on Thursday. “I think that’s a dangerous place. Even when you’re doing really good, it makes you think that you are a superhero. So I don’t take social media seriously. I never did. I’ve always been that way. I’m just focusing on what happens in here and on the field. That’s it. I don’t worry about the noise outside.” Even if Peralta isn’t worried about being traded or his upcoming free agency, he’s only human. There’s an argument to be made that it’s affecting him. Peralta allowed six earned runs in six innings on Tuesday against the St. Louis Cardinals, which elevated his season ERA to 4.04. While his fastball remains one of the best pitches in the major leagues, there have been some disappointing trends. Peralta’s strikeout rate (23.4%) is the lowest it’s ever been in his nine-year career. His walk rate (9.5%) is the highest it’s been since 2021. He’s giving up a ton of hard contact; 40% of balls put in play off Peralta have an exit velocity of 95 mph or more. Despite Peralta’s uneven season, if the Mets decide to be sellers at the deadline, they’re in possession of the top starter on the trade block — outside the possibility that the Tigers shop reigning American League Cy Young Award-winner Tarik Skubal. The starting-pitching market is devoid of arms that have durable track records as Peralta does. He has a career ERA of 3.62, and he has made at least 27 starts in each of the past four full seasons. Contenders will be heavily interested if Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns opts to go down that road. Either way, Peralta is staying out of it. Since the day he joined the Mets in late January and fielded questions about a possible contract extension, he has been focused on the present. “I don’t care what people say, good or bad,” Peralta said, wearing his usual easygoing smile. “I just try to be myself. At the end of the day, if we win, the people are going to be happy. If we’re losing, they’re not going to be happy.” At the beginning of spring training, Peralta said he wanted to get his new teammates together for bonding moments throughout the year, and he’s stayed true to that promise. “He’s inviting guys to breakfast,” Juan Soto said of how Peralta is encouraging a tight clubhouse culture. “He’s always open for anything with his teammates. He’s always planning something. He’s always had time for everything. It’s really cool to see, when you see a guy that’s been in this league so long, and the way he’s handled himself, even when he’s had a rough start to the season, he’s still being the same guy. It’s really tough to find a guy like that.” Every road trip, the Mets try to get at least one full team dinner together. Sometimes it’s brunch. Other times it’s breakfast. Eating together and spending time away from baseball have helped Mets pitchers and position players get to know each other better. “Most of the time, I’m the one,” Peralta said when asked who’s organizing their get-togethers. “But I think because I’ve been doing that, more people are becoming more free about it, and then sometimes they do the invitations. We’ve been together, we’ve been sharing some good moments, even in tough situations, you know? It’s something that makes us feel like a family here.” “It’s like the other half of the game,” Mets veteran pitcher Sean Manaea said of the team dinners. “You get close to your teammates and pull for each other a little bit more.” Near the end of Peralta’s tenure with the Milwaukee Brewers, he used to invite his teammates over to his house for cookouts after day games. Those cookouts became so routine that players stopped asking to come over; after years of get-togethers, they knew the deal. The veteran has always believed that it’s beneficial for him and his teammates to spend time together off the field, bonding over conversations that don’t necessarily revolve around baseball. But that doesn’t mean Peralta is always picking up the bill. Veterans on the team, including Francisco Lindor, often share that responsibility. That is, when they’re not pulling a prank on one of the Mets rookies. In San Francisco during the team’s first road trip this season, Peralta and Lindor told rookie outfielder Carson Benge that it was his turn to pay for dinner. “I said, ‘My credit card doesn’t go that high,’” Benge told Peralta and Lindor at the time. “‘It’s not going to go through.'” Lindor said of Benge: “At first, he definitely thought he was going to pay. But at the end of the day, we were always going to take care of him and everybody else.” Particularly as a rookie, when it’s all too easy to dwell on mistakes or mull over at-bats, Benge has found those team dinners helpful to get his mind off baseball. “I think it’s really important because sometimes, during the season, most of the guys don’t have family here,” Peralta said. “Sometimes you don’t want to be by yourself thinking. When you leave this place, you don’t want to be thinking about this place anymore until the next day. So I think that’s a good way to see it, to make you relax and really enjoy it.” This year’s Mets team, in particular, needed a player like Peralta — several of his teammates describe him as happy-go-lucky and always positive — to foster camaraderie because there are so many new faces in the clubhouse. Since last year’s disappointing playoff miss, the Mets turned over a third of their roster. They brought in eight players from other organizations and promoted two top prospects by the beginning of May. While Peralta’s leadership off the field has been detrimental to the Mets building a rapport, the pitching staff needs him to find consistency in the face of adversity. The 30-year-old has allowed four or more runs in three of his last four outings, all of which came after right-hander Clay Holmes went down with an injury. In 14 starts this season, he has a 1.32 WHIP, indicating he’s allowing more baserunners than he’d like, leading to inflated pitch counts and longer innings. Peralta is averaging 5 ⅔ innings pitched per start. “The numbers are showing a little worse than what I have done,” Peralta said. “Situations in the game, things that happen that I cannot control, and now they affect my numbers, affect me. But at the end of the day, I’m mentally prepared for all this. I just have to keep competing and giving my best every five days.” For Peralta, the formula hasn’t changed. He can’t control trade rumors, just as he can’t control every bounce or defensive play that shapes his final line. What he can control is staying off social media, showing up for his teammates, and finding ways to help the team win. And as long as he’s wearing a Mets uniform, that’s where his attention will stay. His focus, he insists, remains right where it’s been all season: not on the noise outside the clubhouse, but on the people inside it.