The Nationals announced Tuesday that they’ve signed veteran right-hander Wily Peralta to a minor league contract. He’s been invited to Major League camp this spring, per the team.
Peralta, 33, was a starter early in his career with the Brewers but has pitched primarily out of the bullpen dating back to 2017. He’s spent the past two seasons with the Tigers — ’21 in the rotation and ’22 in the ’pen — for whom he’s logged a combined 2.93 ERA in 132 innings of work.
It’s rare to see a healthy pitcher with an ERA that impressive over a sample that large sign a non-guaranteed pact, but Peralta’s well below-average 15.8% strikeout rate and lofty 10.9% walk rate surely gave clubs some pause. Peralta has also benefited from a .268 average on balls in play and a massive 80.2% left-on-base rate, both of which are likely to regress. Metrics like FIP (4.93) and SIERA (5.15) feel he’s highly unlikely to sustain anything close to the level of performance he displayed in Detroit.
That said, the contract still represents a nice add for a rebuilding Nationals club that is light on established arms — particularly in the bullpen. Closer Kyle Finnegan has stepped up as Washington’s top reliever over the past couple seasons, and he’ll be joined by Carl Edwards Jr., veteran swingman Erasmo Ramirez and oft-injured but talented arms like Hunter Harvey and Victor Arano.
If the Nats are viewing Peralta as more of a rotation option than a bullpen arm, he’ll have opportunity there as well. On paper, Washington’s rotation looks full with Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin, Trevor Williams, Josiah Gray and prospects Cade Cavalli and MacKenzie Gore among the in-house options. However, Strasburg’s career has been calamitously derailed by injuries over the past several seasons; he’s pitched in eight games since re-signing in Washington after the 2019 season, due largely to a bout with thoracic outlet syndrome that wiped out his 2021 season and led to a stress reaction developing in his ribcage in 2022. Neither Gore nor Cavalli has established himself in the big leagues, meanwhile, and Gray is still working to curtail the massive home run issues that have thus far prevented him from living up to his former top prospect status.
Peralta is one of several non-roster invitees of note who’ll have a chance to open the season on the Nationals’ pitching staff. Sean Doolittle and Alex Colome will both vie for bullpen spots in camp this spring, as will less-experienced NRIs like Anthony Banda, Anthony Castro and Francisco Perez.
It’s a shame he didn’t stick with the Tigers. Was pretty durable over the past two seasons.
The Tigers have a dozen largely mediocre or unproven starting pitchers. What do they gain from adding one more? Let the kids play and see what you have over a full season; you already know what you have with Wily and he isn’t going to contribute to a contending team.
Yeah, a sub 3.00 ERA is only helpful to non contenders. Right.
One of the many reasons the Tigers are a fixture as a last place team.
The Tigers have an entire roster of mediocre position players too but that never stops them from acquiring proven mediocrity to block their young position players either.
Decent pick up for them.
How about that, someone actually working on improving the pitching staff.
Peralta may be one of the best pitchers in their bullpen
Decent low-cost signing. He seems to work fine in a #6 starter/long relief role. The Nationals could definitley use a pitcher like him.
It’s not that rare.
He had much nastier stuff with the Brewers and we thought he’d be the ace of our rotation.
He just never really learned how to pitch.
He’s kind of bad and the seemingly good numbers with bad peripherals are the proof.
He still really hasn’t learned how to pitch and is getting lucky.
If a guy consistently out performs his peripherals year after year for nearly a decade, then that’s just the kind if pitcher he is. There might be more luck than a guy who pitches as good as his peripherals, but at this point, he’s just that kind of pitcher.
Great low risk pickup. He will mop up some innings.
THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST BARGAINS OF THE OFFSEASON !!! Yesterday, I commented on the Barnes for Bleir Trade article that the MARLINS should have gone after PERALTA, and then I read today that the Nationals did … An Outstanding Pick-Up for them !!
@LordD99- oh no your boy! I know you liked Peralta or Wacha, especially if German or Schmidty were traded for a leftfielder like Max Kepler or Jake McCarthy or the Alek Thomas kid in Arizona. Definitely looking like Hicks and Florial will be platooning in leftfield to begin 2023 now. If no Florial then Cabrera.
Good Luck Wily!! Liked him with The Tigers…………yeah, he’s NOT an All-Star, but he’s a useful piece who got lots of outs even if it wasn’t always pretty.
I know luck has a lot to do with it and he is do for regression at some point but the past 2 years this guy just continues to get results! It’s kinda a shame he has to settle for a MILB contract when worse players are signing 1 year guaranteed deals for like 3 or 4 million. I would not mind at all having this guy as triple a depth for my favorite team!