The Padres have been “actively discussing” left-handed reliever Wandy Peralta in trade talks recently, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. There’s no indication a deal is close at this time.
Peralta, who’ll turn 35 this weekend, is playing out the third season of a four-year, $16.5MM contract. He’s posted a 2.32 ERA in 50 1/3 innings of relief so far but has done so with less convincing rate stats.
The veteran lefty has set down just 15.5% of his opponents on strikes, and this year’s 9.9% swinging-strike rate is down considerably from last year’s strong 12.9% mark. (League average is 10.8%.) Peralta has also walked 9.7% of his opponents. Hitters have made contact on 80.6% of their swings — a fair bit north of the 77% league average. Peralta has benefited from a huge 87.7% strand rate that’s more than 13 percentage points higher than the career mark he carried into the season.
On the plus side, Peralta continues to be among the best in the game at avoiding hard contact. Opponents are averaging just 87.5 mph off the bat against him. He’s allowed a tiny 3.9% barrel rate and a similarly feeble 33.6% hard-hit rate. Peralta’s ground-ball rate was higher in the past, but his current 48.3% mark is still about six percentage points above average. He’s throwing harder than he has since his early days with Cincinnati, sitting better than 96 mph on both his four-seamer and sinker.
Peralta is playing this season on a $4.45MM salary. As of this writing, there’s about $1.579MM of that sum yet to be paid out. He holds an identically priced $4.45MM player option for the 2027 season as well. That wrinkle makes him a bit more difficult to trade. Any interested team that acquires Peralta would do so knowing that he’ll either pitch well and then consider opting out at season’s end or regress (or get injured) and wind up opting into a $4.45MM salary that may no longer look palatable.
The fact that San Diego is discussing Peralta in trades does not signal that the Friars plan to operate as a strict seller. Teams tend to operate on both the buy and sell side of the spectrum during deadline season with increasing frequency each year. This season, with so many clubs in the league hovering around .500, could prove to be an extreme example of that.
For the Friars, the bullpen is an unequivocal strength. Peralta has pitched well this season, but he’s done so primarily in low-leverage spots. A new club with less bullpen certainty might be more apt to use Peralta in tighter situations, but a Padres ‘pen that includes Mason Miller, Adrian Morejon, Jeremiah Estrada, Jason Adam and Bradgley Rodriguez (among others) simply hasn’t found much high-leverage work for the veteran Peralta.
There’s surely a financial element being considered as well. The Padres are in the process of being sold from the Seidler family to new owners Jose E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones (for a record $3.9 billion). They had some obvious payroll limitations late in the 2025-26 offseason. It’s not clear how much room there is in the budget as that ownership transition continues to play out. Moving Peralta obviously wouldn’t reduce payroll by a particularly substantial amount, but it’d trim a bit more than $1.5MM from the actual cash payroll and accordingly reduce San Diego’s luxury tax bill.
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As of this morning, MLBTR contributor Ethan Hullihen pegged the Friars’ luxury obligations at $260,862,182, which translates to a bit more than $5MM in taxes they’ll have to pay out at season’s end. This would be the second straight year the Padres have paid the tax, meaning they’re looking at a 30% tax on the first $20MM by which they exceed the $244MM threshold. Moving Peralta would mean not only shedding the remaining $1.579MM on his contract but also the roughly $473K in taxes they’re otherwise set to pay on that sum. The total savings would be a bit more than $2MM for this season alone, to say nothing of potentially shedding a $4.45MM salary for Peralta’s age-35 season next year.
