LAKELAND, Fla. — Wily Peralta is full of emotions.
He misses his teammates.
He misses baseball.
He misses the Detroit Tigers.
“All the guys treated me right,” Peralta told the Free Press, speaking on the phone from his home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. “They made me feel like part of the team right away, since the first day I got there. Last year I missed spring training, so when I got to the big leagues, I didn’t know nobody. They treated me right and made me feel happy. I’m glad that I’m going to be back, trying to help them get to the playoffs and being a part of the journey.”
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Talking to Peralta’s teammates, something else becomes evident:
Everyone seems to love him.
“You can ask anybody in the clubhouse: We’re really excited to have him,” right-handed starter Casey Mize said. “He’s awesome. I can’t wait to see him, and I’m glad to have him back.”
Outfielder Robbie Grossman: “Wily is loved in this clubhouse. He’s a great major leaguer. I’m looking forward to seeing him soon. Such a good guy.”
Righty reliever Michael Fulmer: “He came up real quiet. I remember his first outing coming out of the bullpen in Kansas City. He made it into the rotation and was huge for this team last year. In the clubhouse, once he started opening up a little more, I realized how nice the guy was. He hung out with everybody and got along with everybody. We’re happy to have him back.”
Left-handed closer Gregory Soto: “He’s a veteran guy. He knows, he supports and he adds a lot to this clubhouse. He helps me with baseball stuff and things outside of baseball.”
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Lefty starter Tarik Skubal: “He’s always got a smile on his face, really good teammate. He’s pretty quiet, and he just goes out there and deals. That’s what he did last year. He came out of the ‘pen once, and every start was six scoreless, seven something. He was huge for us down the stretch, with our limited innings and stuff. He’s just a really good teammate and fun to be around.”
Catcher Eric Haase: “He was huge for us last year. Not only did he go out and pitch his ass off, but he ate innings at a time when we really needed starting pitching. Wily kept us in a lot of games. … Just super effective. He would get a lot of quick outs that allowed him to get deeper and deeper into games and save our ‘pen at a time when those guys were throwing a lot.”
Third baseman Jeimer Candelario: “He’s a huge part of this team. He always takes the ball every five days. He always does his best for the team. We’re excited to have him. We respect him because he’s a warrior.”
Where’s Wily?
As much as Peralta wants to be with the Tigers, and vice versa, the 32-year-old right-hander can’t report to spring training in Lakeland. He can’t even travel from the Dominican Republic to the United States.
The Tigers signed him March 16 to a minor-league contract, jumpstarting Peralta’s work visa application. The process can take about three weeks. He will earn $2.5 million if he joins the big-league roster and can make up to $500,000 in performance bonuses.
“They made me feel like part of the family,” Peralta said. “I’m very excited to see all of them.”
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Peralta inked a minor-league deal because the MLB offers he had, including one from the Tigers, were pulled after MLB’s lockout ended March 10. Spring training was supposed to start Feb. 16, but the 99-day lockout shortened the camp schedule with Opening Day set for April 8 in Detroit.
Coming out of the transaction freeze, teams knew Peralta needed a work visa and would likely miss all of spring training. He won’t make the Tigers’ Opening Day roster, expanded from 26 to 28 players for April.
“It changed a lot,” Peralta said. “Before the lockout, a bunch of teams were calling. After the lockout, everything was different, and everything was so fast. I didn’t have an opportunity to wait that much longer. But I’m glad that I got an opportunity to go back to the Tigers.”
Also, Peralta isn’t on the Tigers’ 40-man roster.
The Tigers, though, seem willing to add him — thus providing him a pathway back to the majors — once he gets to the United States. He could open the 2022 season in Triple-A Toledo for a stateside tune-up but is expected to contribute to the Tigers’ pitching staff at some point early in the year.
“I think he could do a lot of different things,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “We’re going to see where he’s at. For him, he could help us soon in the bullpen, if we put him there. A lot of that depends on how we see (starter Michael) Pineda initially out of the gate with his readiness. The more that Pineda looks like he’s trending towards being ready sooner rather than later, the more likely it is for Peralta to impact us in the bullpen.”
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Peralta is throwing three-inning bullpens, with some live batting practice against professional hitters, a couple days per week at a facility in Bonao, Dominican Republic, about 40 miles from Santo Domingo. This is where Peralta and Soto trained together throughout the offseason.
“I was really disappointed with my slider last year, so coming into the offseason, I worked on it,” said Peralta. “I worked on the split, just to maintain that, and I worked hard on my slider.”
Peralta’s arsenal featured four offerings last season: sinker (30.9%), four-seam fastball (24.0%), split-finger changeup (22.7%) and slider (22.5%). He said his fastball velocity is currently around 94-96 mph in the Dominican Republic.
His split-finger changeup was one of the best in baseball in 2021, second to right-hander Kevin Gausman, who signed a five-year, $110 million deal with the Toronto Blue Jays before the lockout.
Against Peralta’s splitter, opponents hit .080 with one home run and 36 strikeouts. The pitch had a 36.6% swing-and-miss rate and a 21.3% put-away rate (two-strike pitches that resulted in a strikeout).
His slider registered a 30.4% whiff rate but only a 12.2% put-away rate, meaning Peralta struggled to execute his breaking ball with two strikes. Opponents hit .278 with five homers and nine strikeouts against his slider.
“I’m trying to get on top (of the ball) and get that break more consistent,” Peralta said. “Last year, I was very inconsistent with it and wasn’t throwing it for a strike when I needed to, and it wasn’t having good depth when I needed a strikeout with a right-handed hitter. Last year, I had a hard time commanding that pitch. This year, it feels better.”
‘I made myself proud’
For the Tigers in 2021, Peralta posted a 3.07 ERA with 38 walks and 58 strikeouts over 93⅔ innings in 19 games (18 starts).
He had a 14.4% strikeout rate and 9.5% walk rate.
It was a career-changing season, considering the nine-year MLB veteran missed all of 2020 as a free agent with an elbow injury and hadn’t started since 2017 with the Milwaukee Brewers.
“I thought about it when the season ended,” Peralta said. “After my last outing in Chicago (on Oct. 1), I was thinking about it — all the stuff that I went through. And then I did what I did. I made myself really proud. I came into the offseason more motivated than I was a couple years ago. I’m excited to repeat that or do a better job.”
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Peralta, upon joining the Tigers in 2021, pitched seven shutout innings with six strikeouts July 5 against the Texas Rangers in his fifth game (fourth start). It was his first outing of seven scoreless innings since Aug. 14, 2015.
From June 26-July 18, Peralta had a 0.34 ERA over 26⅔ innings in five starts. He finished the season with three starts of seven scoreless innings and one start of six scoreless innings.
“It was huge,” Hinch said. “We needed innings. Quite honestly, we didn’t expect him to stick in the rotation the way that he did. He earned it with continually good performance. His split performed at a great rate. His strike-throwing was pretty good. He established himself in our culture.”
Peralta is eager to make an impact with the Tigers in 2022, but he isn’t sure when he will arrive in the U.S. But there’s something Peralta can control once he shows up.
His goal is to assist the Tigers in their pursuit of the postseason.
“I was very happy with the way the team treated me, the way all my teammates in the clubhouse treated me,” Peralta said. “I’m very, very excited to come back, contribute and help them make the playoffs this year.”
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.