After the dust has settled following every offseason, it's fun to predict how old faces will perform in new places during the upcoming season.
Heading into 2026, baseball fans were throwing out their own prognostications on what players such as Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette, Brendan Donovan, Marcus Semien and Freddy Peralta would do in their new digs.
Conversely, no fans were wondering what Tristan Peters would do in his first year with the White Sox. A 26-year-old rookie, Peters was a seventh-round Draft pick out of Southern Illinois University in 2021. He played with the Savannah Bananas that summer. He was well-traveled as a pro, spending time with three organizations from 2021-25. He was never a highly touted prospect. He had all of four MLB games, 12 at-bats and zero hits to his credit coming into this season. The White Sox acquired Peters after he was designated for assignment by the Rays in December.
At the season's outset, Peters thought he was ticketed for Charlotte -- as in Triple-A -- instead of Chicago. But he won a roster spot during Spring Training and has turned his opportunity into one of the season's most pleasant surprises.
Peters has gone from relative unknown to All-Star this year. The Winkler, Manitoba native has been one of the very best hitters in America's pastime for about three weeks now. For the season, his 4.1 FanGraphs WAR entering Monday is tied for 18th among position players with at least 400 plate appearances. It's also nearly equal to the 4.2 fWAR that those five aforementioned players have combined for this season.
In fact, if you consider every player who changed teams during the offseason, Peters is the fourth-best new addition
Top players to change teams during the 2025-26 offseason by fWAR
1. Dylan Cease, Blue Jays: 5.4
2. Alex Bregman, Cubs: 4.5
3. Luis Arraez, Phillies: 4.2
4. Tristan Peters, White Sox: 4.1
5-T. Pete Alonso, Orioles: 3.9
5-T. Willson Contreras, Red Sox: 3.9
5-T. Brandon Lowe, Pirates: 3.9
Let's go a little deeper into how Peters has suddenly turned into one of the most valuable players in baseball.
All stats updated through Sunday
On center stage
When Peters was the Rays' No. 21 prospect back in 2023, his running and fielding were two of his top tools. Although he saw more time at the corner spots than in center during his time in the Minors, Peters has long had the skills to be a standout player in the middle of the outfield.
A few months before his 2025 big league debut with Tampa Bay, he made a spectacular catch that likened him to former Rays star and Platinum Glove winner Kevin Kiermaier. At the time of Peters' callup last August, Rays pitcher Joe Boyle said that Peters is "one of the best I’ve ever seen" on defense.
The metrics support that claim as Peters has accrued 11 outs above average (10 OAA in center field alone) and has a +10 fielding run value this season. Those each rank inside the top five among all qualified outfielders.
Peters is helped most by his ability to get a great jump. Within the first three seconds of a ball being hit into the air, Peters covers a full three feet more in the correct direction than the average outfielder. That is the sixth most in the Majors among qualified outfielders.
He's also not afraid to put his body on the line and slam into a wall to make a catch, as he proved during a June game against the Orioles at Camden Yards.
Peters' 83rd percentile sprint speed (28.6 feet per second) hasn't led to many steals (eight in 10 attempts through 138 games), but it has obviously come in handy when he's in center as well as on the basepaths, where he has a +2 baserunning run value.
So, if you just took these elements of Peters' game -- outfield defense, athleticism, baserunning -- you'd have a pretty good player on your hands. Maybe not an everyday regular, but a quality option to bring in off the bench.
However, Peters has coupled his defense with a much-improved offensive skill set that's been on full display of late.
Producing at the plate
Twelve at-bats in the Majors isn't much to go on, and Peters would probably not care to look back on his cup of coffee with the Rays last year, when he struck out seven times in those few ABs and didn't get a hit.
But even though his Baseball Savant page doesn't jump out at you at first glance, it's worth noting Peters' 2 mph increase in average bat speed from 2025 to '26 in the big leagues. His current swing speed of 69.9 mph is still well below the league mean (71.7 mph), but swinging harder more often leads to better batted-ball results. His average exit velocity this season (87.6 mph) is nearly 2 mph better than his EV at Triple-A Durham last year (85.9 mph), when he was still in Tampa Bay's system.
Peters hasn't sacrificed contact for more force either. His whiff rate (23.5%) is an improvement upon his 2025 Triple-A rate (26.0), and his strikeout rate has dipped a little as well.
When he makes contact, Peters is focusing on getting the ball into the air and especially to the pull side. His 27.3% pulled airball rate -- which ranks inside the top 40 of qualified hitters -- helps him get the most out of his hacks.
So, in short, Peters is swinging harder, making more contact and leaning into elevating the ball to right field. Those have been instrumental in his breakout campaign. That included a historic cycle on July 10, one in which he got the last two hits he needed for the feat -- a homer and a triple -- in the same inning.
However, Peters really began taking the league by storm starting on Aug. 14. He had been having a nice season up until then, All-Star appearance and all. But since that date, Peters is slashing .378/.439/.743 across 82 plate appearances.
That stretch was highlighted by Peters becoming the 14th rookie in AL/NL history to homer in five consecutive games. He also picked up 10-plus hits, multiple doubles, multiple walks and a stolen base to go along with his home run in each of those five games. Per the Elias Sports Bureau, the only other player to do all of that in a five-game span is Babe Ruth in 1921. And yes, that many qualifiers make that note fairly convoluted. But any time you can link Tristan Peters with Babe Ruth, you've got to do it.
Peters was feted as the AL Rookie of the Month for August and has kept right on chugging in September, going 8-for-20 with four extra-base hits in six games. According to Statcast's batting run value metric, he has been the third-most valuable hitter in the league since this hot streak began a little more than three weeks ago.
Not too shabby for a player who was DFA'd nine months ago.