Freddy Peralta has been on quite the baseball odyssey over the past year, but he has to like where it has taken him — to the mound to start Game 3 of the 2026 World Series.
It’s just irony that he’s doing it against the team he debuted in the major leagues with, the Milwaukee Brewers. But his path has since jumped him to the New York Mets and now the Tampa Bay Rays.
Peralta has been brilliant since first putting on a Rays uniform, and so he’ll be trying to keep Tampa Bay’s season in decent order against the Brewers instead of helping Milwaukee as he had done for most of his career.
The Rays are down 2-0 in the series but have brought it back home for three games at Tropicana Field. Peralta has the chance to set the tone for a turnaround.
It’ll just be a little weird for Milwaukee fans who are now seeing Peralta on the other side, and in what is one of the biggest games in Brewers franchise history.
Freddy Peralta Brewers-Mets Trade
The first step here was Peralta going from the Brewers to the Mets.
Milwaukee chose to trade Peralta before the 2026 season because it was set to be the last year of his contract. Rather than lost Peralta for nothing in free agency at the end of the year, the Brewers sent him to the Mets for a strong prospect haul.
The Mets sent prospects Jett Williams and Brandon Sproat to the Brewers, who also sent Tobias Myers with Peralta to the Mets.
The irony is that Peralta was almost as bad as he’s ever been for the Mets — a 4.99 ERA in 22 outings with a 5-9 record as New York quickly fell out of contention, setting up another trade.
Freddy Peralta Mets-Rays Trade
With the Mets not going to make the playoffs and Peralta in the last year of his deal still, they tried to recoup whatever value they could be dealing him to the Rays before the MLB trade deadline.
The Mets got Gary Gill Hill, Emilien Pitre and Aidan Smith in return from Tampa Bay.
And then with the Rays, Peralta rediscovered himself. In 10 starts to finish the regular season, he had a 3.25 ERA.
In the playoffs, he’s been incredible — a 1.08 ERA in four appearances, including three starts and a key relief outing that have covered 16.2 innings.
The Rays made sure he’d be well rested for Game 3, and now the ball is in his hands with a lot on the line.
Peralta was originally a Seattle Mariners signing out of the Dominican Republic but he was traded while still in the minor leagues from the Mariners to the Brewers in the December 2015 trade that sent Adam Lind to Seattle.
All these years later, it’s Peralta against the Brewers with just about everything on the line.
How Freddy Peralta Went From Brewers to Mets to Rays in Time for World Series