Padres left-hander Wandy Peralta has exercised his $4.45MM player option, according to Jon Heyman of The New York Post. He will return as a member of San Diego’s bullpen for 2027.
This is the third straight offseason in which Peralta has chosen to remain with the Padres. His original four-year deal, signed in February 2024, included a $4.25MM player option for 2025 and $4.45MM player options for 2026 and ’27. Compared to teammate Yuki Matsui, who is four years younger and just posted a sub-2.00 ERA (albeit with plenty of good luck), Peralta is more likely to have faced a pay cut if he tested the open market this time around. Instead, he’ll play out the final year of his current deal. Matsui has until 4:00pm CT tomorrow to decide whether to stick around for two years and $13.5MM.
The 35-year-old Peralta has been a solid reliever since the start of 2020. In 376 innings since then, he’s held opponents to a .669 OPS and a 3.26 earned run average. While Peralta typically posts below-average strikeout numbers, he thrives on a sinker-changeup combination and exceptional ground ball rates. From 2021-25, only 11 pitchers with at least 250 innings had a better ground ball rate than Peralta’s 56.8%.
This year was a bit of a step back. On the one hand, Peralta pitched a career-high 77 1/3 innings with a decent 3.61 ERA and a career-best 7.2% walk rate. However, he only struck out 15.6% of opponents and benefited from a high 77.7% strand rate. The lefty’s ground ball rate dropped from 59.7% in 2025 to 45.6% this year. That’s still above average, but it’s far from the elite numbers that Peralta usually posts. Both xERA and SIERA had Peralta at a 4.32 figure, a fair bit higher than his actual ERA.
Even with the fall-off in ground ball rate, Peralta’s durability and decent bottom-line results make him an underrated member of San Diego’s bullpen. He threw the second-most innings of any Padres reliever behind lefty Adrian Morejon, who covered 86 frames. Bradgley Rodriguez and star closer Mason Miller were behind those two at 70 innings apiece. Morejon had an excellent season and is a candidate to receive a qualifying offer, and he could be too pricey to bring back when he ultimately rejects the QO.
With Morejon and Jason Adam departing, that leaves Miller, Rodriguez, and Jeremiah Estrada as the club’s top three relief arms. Compared to those three, Peralta is nowhere near as flashy, but he’s nonetheless a valuable innings eater for the middle relief spots. The Padres are primarily focusing on rebuilding their rotation since Michael King, Nick Pivetta, Walker Buehler, Robbie Ray, and Casey Mize are all free agents. In that context, Peralta sticking around on an affordable salary gives the bullpen some continuity and leaves more payroll space to address the rotation.
Photo courtesy of Denis Poroy, Imagn Images
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