The Mets have already made one blockbuster trade this winter and one baseball insider proposed another to help David Stearns land an ace for his pitching staff.
The New York Mets fired up the Hot Stove on Sunday with a blockbuster trade, sending outfielder Brandon Nimmo to Texas in exchange for second baseman Marcus Semien. The deal could spark a slew of activity for the Mets, who are poised to shake up the core of a team that underwhelmed down the stretch to miss the postseason in 2025.
The deal is a significant step towards improving the Mets’ run prevention, an outlined goal of David Stearns this offseason, and another angle the Mets can use to achieve that goal is bolstering their rotation. Stearns has shown a preference to avoid handing out long-term deals to free agent pitchers, so the trade market could offer the Mets a potential alternative in the form of Brewers’ ace Freddy Peralta.
The Athletic‘s Jim Bowden released a story on Monday morning suggesting five potential trade packages Milwaukee could obtain for Peralta, who has one year of club control left before hitting free agency. The Mets and Brewers have linked up on trades before under Stearns, who acquired Tyrone Taylor from his former club prior to 2024, and New York’s strong farm system could offer pieces that can help Milwaukee maintain its winning formula on a budget.
What A Potential Trade Package For Freddy Peralta Could Look Like
In his piece, Bowden suggests that the Mets could send pitching prospect Brandon Sproat and infielder Luisangel Acuña to Milwaukee for Peralta. The package is a similar makeup to what the Brewers got for Corbin Burnes from Baltimore two years ago, when the Orioles sent prospects Joey Ortiz and DL Hall along with a competitive balance draft pick back to Milwaukee.
The best asset the Brewers would be getting back is Sproat, who is one of the Mets’ top pitching prospects that flashed potential in the rotation in September. Most scouts project Sproat can be a mid-rotation starter with good stuff, although there is a chance he can be better than that with proper development.
The other piece Bowden included is Acuña, a toolsy player who fell behind the Mets’ other young infielders on the depth chart with a poor offensive performance after April. Acuña would be in line for more playing time with the Brewers, who could have him compete for shortstop reps with Ortiz, and his brand of speed and defense would make him a perfect fit in the Milwaukee lineup.
The question with this proposed package is whether Stearns would be willing to part with one of his top pitching prospects for a rental player. The Mets could negate that problem by extending Peralta as a condition of a trade, but it is unknown if the type of deal Peralta would want is one Stearns would be comfortable handing out to a player who will turn 30 in June.
The Mets could also counter by offering a pitching prospect from their next wave of arms, such as Jack Wenninger or Jonathan Santucci, alongside Acuña and current rotation member Kodai Senga. There has been an expectation that the Mets will look to move Senga this winter and his remaining contract, which has two years and $28 million left with a conditional club option for 2028 at $15 million if Senga suffers an arm injury that requires him to miss more than 130 consecutive days of time.
Senga has struggled with mechanics and non-arm injuries for the past two years but he has flashed the ability to be a top of the rotation starter if everything is clicking, earning down-ballot Cy Young votes in 2023. Having that kind of pitcher on an affordable rate could be valuable for a budget-conscious franchise like the Brewers, who have shown the ability to get the best out of their pitching for years.
There is also, of course, no reason for the Brewers to move Peralta for anything less than what they deem equal value. Peralta will earn only $8 million in 2026 on a team option, so the Brewers can easily run back their rotation with him and Brandon Woodruff at the top while still finding ways to improve their roster elsewhere.
Milwaukee would then have the ability to either hold Peralta for better offers at the trade deadline or recoup a draft pick if he leaves in free agency, which they did with Willy Adames a few years ago. It may take a package similar to what Bowden suggested to pry Peralta out of Milwaukee, but time will tell if Stearns feels that is a worthy price to add the Brewers’ ace to top the Mets’ rotation.
