JUPITER, Fla. -- Picture this: Citi Field, Opening Day, Freddy Peralta vs. Paul Skenes.
It’s a baseball fever dream that should become reality on March 26 (1:15 p.m. ET, NBC/Peacock), now that the Mets have announced Peralta as their Opening Day starter. Assuming the Pirates make the obvious move and do the same with Skenes, that game will feature two of the top five finishers in National League Cy Young voting. Skenes won the award, while Peralta finished fifth.
“He’s the man,” Peralta said of Skenes. “I think that he’s an amazing pitcher, great pitcher. And I know for sure that we’re going to compete.”
The Opening Day start is a heady honor for Peralta, who has yet to start a regular-season game for the Mets. He came to the club in a January trade with the Brewers and made his unofficial Mets debut Friday with three perfect innings in a Grapefruit League 14-3 win against the Cardinals.
“As soon as we acquired him, it was pretty clear that he was going to be pitching at the front of our rotation,” said manager Carlos Mendoza, who made the Opening Day announcement before the game. “He earned it. He’s done it. I’m excited, and we are all excited.”
For the Mets, Peralta is just the latest in a long line of varied Opening Day starters. The Mets haven’t had a pitcher repeat the assignment since Jacob deGrom from 2019-21. Since that time, Tylor Megill, Max Scherzer, Jose Quintana and Clay Holmes have all taken a turn.
Peralta made sense as the next pitcher in line for several reasons. Foremost is his pedigree: a multi-time All-Star, Peralta is coming off a year that saw him lead the NL in wins, going 17-6 with a 2.70 ERA over 33 starts. The Mets also didn’t have an obvious alternative. While Nolan McLean has the potential to be the team’s best starter this season, he has made only eight Major League starts to date. Holmes, who earned last year’s Opening Day nod under similar circumstances, profiles more as a mid-rotation starter. Sean Manaea and Kodai Senga are both coming off injury-laden seasons, while Peterson cratered in the second half.
Contrast those resumes to that of Peralta, who’s been as steady as they come. Over the past three seasons, he’s thrown between 165 and 180 innings each year, with a sub-4 ERA and at least 200 strikeouts in all of them. He started each of the past two Opening Days in Milwaukee.
“I was wishing to be [the Opening Day starter], but I knew that I was coming to a new team,” Peralta said. “For me, it doesn’t matter if I was going to pitch the first day or the second or third. It doesn’t matter. Just be myself and give the best of myself and try to win the ballgame.”
Mendoza wasted little time in giving Peralta the assignment, telling him and other Mets starters in the early days of Spring Training. The right-hander already knew when he took the mound for his Grapefruit League debut on Friday, retiring all nine Cardinals he faced. Asked about it afterward, Peralta said the assignment “feels like a commitment for me and for my family, too, to be able to get the ball on the first day.”
It’s possible the Mets make an even firmer commitment in the coming weeks. Peralta, who makes $8 million this year, will be eligible for free agency following the 2026 season. Unsurprisingly, rumors of a potential extension have followed. Asked directly on Friday if he's had talks with the Mets since Spring Training began, Peralta broke into a wide grin and replied: “No comment.”
“What I can say is that everything has been amazing,” Peralta said. “Talking to people from the bottom to the top -- I mean like people from the office, everywhere -- they’ve been very easy for me, easy to work with. I’m just happy, because I feel that they have my back.”
For now, Peralta will continue working to assimilate to his new club -- something that has clearly come naturally to him.
“First day when I met him, it seemed like he was part of this team for years,” Mendoza said. “That … says a lot about who he is as a person, as a human. He brings that joy, man. Everywhere he goes, it’s contagious. You’re in the kitchen, and he’s right there, and there’s a bunch of people smiling. You go in the weight room and he’s right there, there’s that joy to it that he brings with him. From the very beginning, it was easy to tell that, man, this guy feels like he’s been here for a long time.”