Per Buster Olney, the Rays have agreed to terms with Joel Peralta. Peralta's been a big league reliever since 2005. He had his best season of his career last year posting ERA / FIP / xFIP of 2.02 / 3.02 / 3.64. A smallish righty, Peralta strikes out a fair amount of guys while not walking many. His issue in the past has been the homerun, as he's a career 46.5% flyball pitcher. He's quite a bit better against right-handed batters than left-handed batters, having a FIP / xFIP split of 5.67 / 4.86 against lefties and 3.57 / 3.99 against righties.
To me at least, he looks like this year's Dan Wheeler. On their careers they have eerily similar K/9, BB/9, HR/9, FB%, and split numbers. Here's a look at how they stack up in a number of different areas:
|
Wheeler |
Peralta |
|
|
FIP |
4.1 |
4.34 |
|
xFIP |
4.02 |
4.31 |
|
RHB FIP |
3.57 |
3.57 |
|
LHB FIP |
4.79 |
5.67 |
|
FB% |
46% |
47% |
|
K/9 |
7.99 |
7.32 |
|
BB/9 |
2.78 |
2.37 |
|
HR/9 |
1.23 |
1.34 |
As you can see, they are almost exactly the same pitcher. Wheeler is a little more successful against left-handed batters, but I trust Maddon and Co. to put Peralta in a position to succeed (except in the lowest leveraged situations, when who cares?). Chalk up another good under the radar signing that will help the Rays bullpen get close to where it was last year.