When news broke that the Milwaukee Brewers might be interested in trading away Freddy Peralta instead of paying one of the best pitchers in the game a new long-term contract, the usual suspects around MLB were instantly linked to the right-hander.
The New York Yankees? Check. The San Francisco Giants? Check. The Atlanta Braves? Check, check, and check. And yet, after losing out on Kyle Tucker in free agency, the New York Mets made it a point to improve their roster in substantive ways, signing Bo Bichette in free agency and acquiring Luis Robert Jr. from the Chicago White Sox before making a blockbuster deal to acquire Peralta and Tobias Myers from the Brewers for Jett Williams and Brandon Sproat, according to MLB Network Insider John Heyman.
After coming just short of a playoff spot in 2025 despite having the second-highest paid roster in all of baseball, the Mets were hammered for losing out on top players like Edwin Diaz, Dylan Cease, and Tucker, and decided to go all-in on building the best team money could buy in a modern-day National League where financial commitment has time and time again proven a major piece of a World Series puzzle.
And yet, while the Mets were able to secure Peralta's services without having to surrender any of their win-now pieces, that doesn't mean they're suddenly the favorite to represent the conference in the World Series this October.
No, another team that was interested in Peralta, the Los Angeles Dodgers, easily could have bested the Mets' offer in a deal with the Brewers but opted against it, knowing full well that he was likely to land in New York if they didn't offer up a package headlined by a player like Josue De Paula and Zyhir Hope. Even if this deal made the Mets better, they still aren't as good as the Dodgers, which should allow Andrew Friedman and company to sleep soundly at night.
The Mets still don't have enough firepower to take down the Dodgers
In 2025, the Mets grossly underperformed versus expectations.
Coming off an 89-win season where Francisco Lindor led the team with a WAR twice the size of the team's second-place finisher, third baseman Mark Vientos, the addition of Juan Soto was supposed to instantly push the Mets past the Philadelphia Phillies to become the belle of the NL East's ball.
Instead, the Mets finished with six fewer wins, lost 15 of their last 25 games, and found themselves on the outside of the NL's numbers game, with the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres, and Cincinnati Reds finishing the season in the three wildcard spots.
Are the Mets a better team today than one, two, or even six months ago? Yes, yes they are, but so are the Dodgers, and they are coming off a season where they not only made the playoffs but won the World Series for the second year in a row.
Suffering through injuries and the weight of being the team every opponent circles on their calendars during the regular season, the Dodgers still finished out the regular season with a 93-69 record, giving them the third seed but crucially not a first-round bye. Fortunately, that didn't much matter for LA, as they were able to overcome their streaky offense to take down the Reds, Philadelphia Phillies, and Brewers with a combined record of 9-1 in large part due to the absolute monster that was their starting pitching unit.
Heading into the offseason, the Dodgers' biggest problem once again was the perception that they were ruining baseball, but despite the outside perception, they still left the summer with the best free agent relief pitcher on the market, a player the Mets know well in Diaz, and Tucker, the top overall free agent who LA vastly overpaid in order to take a minor crack in their outfield and clog it with a metric ton of duct tape that should hold for the next four years or so, save a premature opt-out.
Would it have been nice to have added Peralta to their already ace pitching staff? Sure, especially if injuries hit, but the team already has World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Cy Young winner Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and two-time MVP – in Dodger Blue – Shohei Ohtani on the mound heading into 2026. Factor in 2025 playoff reliever Roki Sasaki, Emmitt Sheehan, and Jacob Wrobluski, and the Dodgers might just have too many starting pitchers, not a need at the position.
Will the Mets be a better team in 2026? Most assuredly so, but so will the Dodgers, and considering the level of play they've been able to achieve with basically the same roster minus Diaz and Tucker, imagine the level of play they could achieve in a few short months when the season rolls around? In the end, the Dodgers got the players the Mets wanted in free agency, not the other way around, and considering the talent gap heading into the Peralta deal, they still have to be considered the better team after it's been completed.
