MVBrewers Honorable Mention: Wily Peralta

MVBrewers is a player-by-player look at the most valuable members of the 2012 Brewers, as voted on by you. Here's our top ten:

1. Ryan Braun
2. Aramis Ramirez
3. Yovani Gallardo
4. Corey Hart
5. Norichika Aoki
6. Jonathan Lucroy
7. Carlos Gomez
8. Zack Greinke
9. Marco Estrada
10: Mike Fiers

Honorable Mentions: Martin Maldonado, Rickie Weeks, Jim Henderson, Mark Rogers, Shaun Marcum, Wily Peralta

The series now continues with Honorable Mentions, to cover some of the Brewers we've missed. This is the sixth installment in that segment. You can see all the player profiles in the Most Valuable Brewers 2012 section. The series continues tomorrow with the next Honorable Mention.

In minor league circles there's a common statement, frequently abbreviated "TINSTAAP." It stands for "There is no such thing as a pitching prospect." Until a pitcher stays healthy long enough to reach the majors and pitches well enough to be effective there, you're never quite sure what you have. Yovani Gallardo was a top pitching prospect at one point, but so were guys like Manny Parra, Ben Hendrickson and Nick Neugebauer.

Wily Peralta entered 2012 widely seen as one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball, but still having some work to do to prove he could stick at the major league level. He certainly didn't help himself by getting off to a very rough start in AAA. On June 1 he had another disaster start for Nashville and his ERA ballooned to 6.83. He walked 32 batters in his first 54 innings (5.3 per nine innings) and it looked like the season might represent a significant setback for him.

Peralta deserves a lot of credit, though, for turning things around. Over his final 16 minor league outings he was able to lower his ERA by more than two runs, earning a September callup. He made his first major league start and pitched a quality start on September 5, and allowed just seven runs over five September outings while striking out 23 in 29 innings.

Now Peralta becomes a likely candidate to open the 2013 season in the starting rotation, or at least pitch there sometime next year. He worked a combined 175.2 innings this season between Nashville and Milwaukee, so a full season of starting in the majors could be a possibility for him.

Best Game

Four of Peralta's five starts in the majors this season were very good, but one certainly stands out: He pitched eight shutout innings against the Mets on September 16, allowing just two hits and a walk while striking out five. By game score it was the fifth best outing by a Brewer pitcher all season:

Here are the highlights from his outing:

Contract Status

Peralta has less than one year of service time, so the Brewers still control his rights for six more years and he won't be arbitration eligible for the first time until 2016 at the earliest. He also still has an option remaining, so he could be sent back to AAA in 2013 if needed.