Milwaukee Brewers: Top Prospect Wily Peralta Offers Temporary Value as Reliever

The Milwaukee Brewers promoted their top prospect, right-hander Wily Peralta, on Saturday afternoon in the wake of Chris Narveson’s season-ending injury.

The 22-year-old made his big-league debut on Sunday against the Rockies, allowing one run on three hits while recording the first strikeout of his nascent career.

While Peralta is expected to pitch out of the Brewers bullpen, he could conceivably work his way into the No. 5 spot in the starting rotation.

Peralta was signed out of the Dominican Republic as a toolsy outfielder in 2005. But after witnessing his raw arm strength, he was quickly transitioned to the bump. After missing the 2007 season due to Tommy John surgery, Peralta has progressed steadily since returning.

Peralta pounds the strike zone with a four-seam and two-seam fastball and typically sits in the low-to-mid 90s. His best secondary pitch is a hard slider, which, when kept down in the zone, can be a legitimate swing-and-miss pitch. He also features a changeup that has come along over the years due to his role as a starter, but at the moment, probably only grades out as about a 50.

Had he pitched well during spring training, there was an outside chance that Peralta could have made the team. However, he struggled in his limited opportunities and was cut from the team late in processed, and subsequently re-assigned to Triple-A Nashville. 

Appearing in three games—one of which was a start, as well as his worst outing—Peralta posted an 8.53 ERA and .174 WHIP over 6.1 innings.  He did notch four strikes, though he also surrendered seven hits and issued four walks.

Prior to being recalled on Saturday, Peralta was 0-1 with a 2.12 ERA and 2.91 FIP in three starts spanning 17 innings. He struck out 13 while walking six and posted a 3.00 GB/FB rate.

Despite working exclusively as a starter since 2010, Peralta has the potential to be successful out of the bullpen in the interim. If there’s one thing that’s impeded the right-hander’s ascent to the Major Leagues, it’s his lack of command. In 491 career minor league innings, Peralta has amassed 206 walks. However, his tenuous feel for the strike zone has always been negated by a favorable groundball-to-flyball ratio.

The right-hander is coming off arguably his best season in 2011 when he registered a 3.46 ERA and 3.53 FIP at Double-A over 119.2 innings while posting an 8.80 K/9 and 3.61 BB/9.

His success merited a promotion to Triple-A to finish the year where he pitched well enough to attract consideration for a late-season promotion to the Show. Making five starts, Peralta recorded a 2.03 ERA, 1.78 FIP, and 11.61 K/9 over 31 innings.

The only question remaining is whether Peralta will show enough command as a reliever to warrant an audition to be the team’s fifth starter. He’s definitely ready to be challenged at the big-league level, as his rise through the minors has been gradual and extremely cautious at times.

Even though I prefer to see an arm like Peralta’s utilized as a starter rather than a reliever, assigning him to a bullpen role is definitely a smart way to ease him into life as a Major League pitcher. If his command is at least tolerable and he’s inducing more groundballs than flyballs, he should be auditioning for a spot in the rotation in the near future.  If not, he could still be highly valuable to a Brewers bullpen that ranks 24th in the league with a 4.47 ERA and 1.65 WHIP.