Insider Predicts Mets Will Lose Freddy Peralta to NL Foe

The New York Mets secured an 11-7 win against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Opening Day on the back of ace Freddy Peralta's regular season debut with his new team.

Peralta didn't have the best outing of his life. He went 5 innings and gave up 4 earned runs on 6 hits while also tallying 7 strikeouts. However, because the Mets' offense tallied five runs against reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes in the first inning, this performance from Peralta was enough to earn him his first win in a Mets uniform after amassing 17 wins with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2025.

There has been a lot of chatter about contract extension negotiations with Peralta over the past month or so. While the Mets had to deal two of their top prospects (Jett Williams and Brandon Sproat) to land Peralta, they would have had to give up much more if Peralta had more than one year of team control on his contract.

New York Mets starting pitcher Freddy Peralta (51) | Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

Therefore, New York surely thought they'd be able to land a contract extension with Peralta, therefore turning him into a key piece of their long-term rotation. While there's still plenty of time for this to happen, some believed Peralta would be locked down by Opening Day.

And with each day that Peralta doesn't have a new deal with the Mets, the chances of him not agreeing to terms and hitting free agency at the end of this season increase.

MLB Insider Predicts Freddy Peralta Will Join Giants in Free Agency

This is the sentiment that The Athletic's MLB insider Jim Bowden shared in a March 25 article, where he made 26 predictions for the 2026 season.

At one point in the article, he predicted that Peralta would sign a seven-year, $214 million contract with the San Francisco Giants in free agency this upcoming offseason.

26 Predictions for 2026: https://t.co/aauPuChw5D
— Jim Bowden⚾️ (@JimBowdenGM) March 25, 2026

It has been reported that the biggest reason why Peralta and the Mets still haven't agreed to an extension is that Peralta wants a seven or eight-year deal while the Mets are more keen on signing him for four or five years, which is David Stearns' prevailing philosophy with pitchers.

Therefore, if another team is willing to give Peralta the contract length he's seeking, it would make sense for him to spurn a shorter-term offer from New York.

The hope is that the two sides can iron out a deal during this season before this potential scenario plays out.

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