WHO IS PERALTA?

David Peralta is an outfielder with the Diamondbacks. Born in August of 1987, Peralta will turn 29 years old in August (he ain’t young folks). He stands 6’1” and weighs about 215 pounds. A lefty thrower and swinger, he burst on to the scene last season with an impressive, slightly out of nowhere type of season in 2015. The hype is aggressive with him this season. Is it warranted?

MINOR LEAGUE NUMBERS

Peralta began his professional career as an 18 year old in the Appalachian League back in 2006. Peralta was eventually released by the Cardinals, the team that drafted him, in 2009 (he kept ending up injured and had two surgeries on his left shoulder).

Did I mention he began his career as a pitcher? I didn’t.

He began his career as a pitcher.

When it became obvious that his shoulder just wasn’t going to cooperate Peralta turned to hitting full-time (he missed the entire 2008 and 2010 seasons).

Here are his hitting numbers.

2011: Appeared in 85 games in the North American League. He abused pitchers to the tune of a .392/.429/.661 slash line. Get this. He hit 17 homers, drove in 81 runs and socked 30 doubles --- in 85 games of action. After mashing early in the year he hit .200 with a .422 OPS in 26 games in the Venezuelan Winter League.

2012: He played for Wichita, an independent team in the American Association. He hit .332/.392/.462 over 98 games as he hit just three homers. He did drive in 70 runs and steal a big 25 bases.

2013: Appeared in 42 games with Amarillo in the American Association hitting .352 with a .986 OPS. He hit eight homers and drove in 38 runners. Moved on to Visalia in the California league, a High-A club, hitting .346/.370/.534 with eight homers and 42 RBI in 51 games.

2014: He hit .297/.359/.480 with six homers and 46 games over 53 games in Double-A. In the Venezuelan Winter League he appeared in 55 more games batting .319/.376/.433.

Let’s put it all together.

In 225 official games in the minors Peralta hit .359 with a .404 OBP and .566 SLG. Those are numbers that end up with your face hanging on a plaque in Cooperstown. The only negative is that he hit just 28 homers. Not that you shouldn’t look past that.

I’m only fully trusting of the batted ball data with Peralta in the minors for 2013 and 2014 (leaving out 2011 and 2012). When we look at this work in those two seasons here is what we find.

Peralta had a very moderate, in fact below average, line drive rate of 19 percent in 2013-14. He also had a fly ball rate of 30 percent, about 4-5 percentage points below the big league average, in those two seasons. He didn’t hit as many line drives as you would expect. He didn’t hit as many fly balls as you would expect (more in a moment there). Both of those facts were unexpected given his slash line those two years over 104 games (.322/.364/.507).

As for the big fly it really wasn’t part of his game those two seasons as his HR/FB ratio was 13.0 percent, which when coupled with his below league average fly ball rate, led to a total of 14 homers in 410 at-bats. That effort led to an Isolated Power mark of .185 in 2013-14. The big league average last season was .157 so he was slightly better than that. He also posted a strong .353 BABIP, though as we’ve seen, that mark wasn’t supported by his line drive rate of 18.7 percent (note, we’re only talking about 104 games and that’s hardly a representative sample size to get a clear picture).

In 2013-14 he also struggled against lefties with a .241/.308/.373 slash line. He blasted righties of course with a .343/.379/.541 line.


BIG LEAGUE NUMBERS

2014: In 88 games as a rookie he hit a solid .286 with eight homers and 36 RBIs. His OPS was .770.

2015: Appeared in 149 games for the D’backs hitting a robust .312 with 17 homers and 78 RBI. He also scored 61 times, stole nine bases and posted impressive OBP (.371) and OPS (.893) marks.

Just like his official minor league work, we don’t have a large sample size of data to break down here with Peralta – just 237 major league games covering 865 plate appearances.

Peralta has only walked 60 times. I’ve seen worse, I’ve seen better.

Peralta has struck out 167 times. I’ve seen worse, I’ve seen better.

The result is a 0.36 BB/K ratio that is a couple of hundredths below the big league average. Slightly below average is Peralta here.

Peralta owns a solid, but not exciting, line drive rate of 21.3 percent. In his two big league seasons the mark is 21.2 and 21.3 percent. Consistent.

Peralta has posted a .351 BABIP the last two seasons. As a rookie he had a strong .328 mark but he upped that rate in ’15 up to .368. A few notes.

1 – His .368 mark last season was the 10th best mark in baseball.

2 – His .351 mark the last two seasons is 9th in baseball (minimum 850 plate appearances).

3 – Peralta has a hard hit rate the last two season of 33.1 percent. That’s just 64th in baseball and well off the pace that his BABIP would suggest it might be.

Is Peralta going to be able to hold on to that BABIP mark? I would expect his BABIP to much closer to his .328 rookie mark than his .368 second year rate. When that happens it’s going to be tough for Peralta to match the .301 batting average he owns to this point of his big league career. Another reason for making that statement is the splits that he has carried over from the minors. Remember when I noted he couldn’t hit lefties? Here are his career splits in the bigs.

vs. lefties: .224/.281/.321
vs. righties: .320/.368/.534

He’s simply not very good at all against lefties. In fact, he’s quite poor. Think of it. He has one homer in 156 at-bats against lefties and his .321 SLG against them is one single point ahead of his batting average against righties. That’s just awful.

Speaking of splits, Peralta has a .919 OPS at home versus a mere .766 on the road. Don’t forget that if you can change your lineup on a daily basis.

Now the power.

In 225 minor league games Peralta averaged a homer every 32.1 at-bats.
In 237 big league games Peralta has averaged a homer every 31.6 at-bats.

No growth there.

The real issue when it comes to his power output is that I cannot see where any more power is going to be found. Peralta has a 28.4 percent fly ball ratio in two seasons. That’s WAY below the league average of 34 percent. As far as I can tell 22 homers is the highest anyone with a fly ball ratio of 28.5 percent or lower had last season (Shin-Soo Choo). I don’t think that Peralta can even get to that mark though. Why? The guy has a 50.3 percent ground ball ratio and a 28.4 fly ball ratio for his career leading to a 1.77 GB/FB ratio. Great for a speedster. Terrible for a “power hitter.” The only way Peralta reaches 20 homers in ’16 is (1) if he jacks up his fly ball rate, remember it was 30 percent in 2013-14 in the minors, and that seems unlikely. (2) Could he boost his career 14.0 HR/FB ratio? He did post a mark of 17.7 percent last season, but again, nothing in his track record suggests that his HR/FB ratio is going to climb to 20 percent in 2016.

OUTLOOK

Peralta had a great season last year. However, it seems unlikely that he will improve on his batting average. In fact, the number is likely to drop, and it’s possible he ends up in a platoon if he continues to struggle against lefties. Peralta also hits too many ground balls to think that a run to 25 homers is possible. The guy can hit, but at 28 years of age are his skills likely to grow in any appreciable way?

10-team Mixed: For me, and I know others disagree, he’s no more than a fourth outfielder here. His batting average is stable, he has the talent to swipe 10 bases and he should be a solid producer in the counting categories hitting in a potentially impressive D’backs lineup.

12-team Mixed: I’d still like to slot him as my 4th outfielder here, but I could live with him as my third if I had two top level bats ahead of him. With the uncertainty of homer growth, and concern about his ability to hit lefties, it also sounds like a better idea to roster Peralta in a league where you can make daily lineup switches to maximize his output. He’s not someone you want to run out there against lefties, especially if they are strong portsiders.

15-team Mixed: A nice target. The deeper the league the more difficult it becomes to find those batting average bats. Peralta could see an increase in the RBI column, perhaps a big jump, and those two facts place him as an elite OF3 type.

NL-Only: Peralta can rap the ball around the park. I feel confident that there will be no face-falling here. Ultimately it comes down to price. I wouldn’t roster him expecting him to exceed his levels of production from last season. Of course, he could by merely accruing more at-bats. I just worry, as noted, about a batting average pull back and a lack of homer growth. A solid bat though. I don’t mean to suggest anything other than that.

To see where Peralta ranks take a look at our 2016 Rankings that are part of the MLB Draft Guide.

 

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).