Brewers Can't Put Off Freddy Peralta Trade Decision Until Midseason

Frankly, it's criminal that the Milwaukee Brewers have barely been eliminated from the Major League Baseball playoffs for a full weekend, and already, the talk has turned to trading away one of the team's biggest stars.

That's the reality the Brewers live in, though, and ace Freddy Peralta is a prime example of a Brewers trade candidate who would never fit in the same category if he played for a team with a high payroll. The two-time All-Star is heading into his age-30 season, and will make just $8 million, a paltry sum for such a high-caliber pitcher.

One thing is for certain, though. If the Brewers are going to make the ultimate Brewers move and trade Peralta, they'd better get it over with before the season starts.

Freddy Peralta trade decision must be made ASAP

In a recent article, Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel brought up the idea of holding onto Peralta until the trade deadline, which was the incentive behind writing this piece -- to illustrate just how ludicrous that owuld be.

"Milwaukee could also hold onto Peralta and then trade him at some point during the 2026 season, although the return would be drastically reduced in that scenario," Rosiak wrote.

"With a number of young, internal options returning – highlighted by Jacob Misiorowski, Quinn Priester and Chad Patrick – the Brewers might feel they're covered well enough and see what the market has to offer for Peralta, who would no doubt be an attractive trade target considering his age, productivity, injury history and bargain-basement salary."

Let's be clear: the right move, if the Brewers operated the way a team that loved its fans above all else should operate, would be to keep Peralta and extend him at a reasonable cost -- which he's clearly willing to do to some degree, given how much he loves the franchise.

However, Brewers ownership's definition of reasonable could wildly differ from ours, and nine figures might not even be in play. In that event, there's still a strong case to be made that Peralta should be kept, because there might never be a better opportunity for this team to push for a long-awaited World Series title.

But having said all of that, if the Brewers have made up their minds that a Peralta trade is in the cards, it has to be done before the season.

They're not going to be out of playoff contention next year, and trading Peralta in the middle of a pennant race, as the Brewers did with Josh Hader in 2022, is the kind of move that destroys trust and could set the team back a year or two.

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