The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 MLB Trade Deadline.Trade details: Tampa Bay Rays acquire RHP Freddy Peralta from the New York Mets for INF Émilien Pitre, OF Aidan Smith and RHP Gary Gill Hill Acquired this offseason, Freddy Peralta was bad for the New York Mets, primarily because he couldn’t command his fastball up top like he did for years with the Milwaukee Brewers. While he’s not the only reason they’re selling at a deadline when they expected to be buyers, he’s part of the problem. The Tampa Bay Rays get to buy low, maybe, on a guy who was an above-average starter as recently as last year and hasn’t lost any velocity, trading a solid package of three prospects to the Mets, none of them elite or top-100 types but two of them are fairly promising.Peralta’s stuff isn’t markedly different this year from last year, at least not enough to explain his drop-off. But his ability to locate has gotten worse. He’s lived on that top rail with his high-ride four-seamer for years, even when he was 88-92 mph as a prospect, and now that he’s more 92-95, he could live up there all day and miss bats. But it’s not just the four-seamer. He’s left far more changeups in the middle third, after pounding the bottom of the zone with it for years, living mostly low and away to righties last year. I think almost anyone can see what the problem has been here, but the solution is another matter.The Rays must think they can help, since I doubt they’re trading this trio of minor leaguers to borrow Peralta for two months while merely hoping he gets better. We’ve seen them help improve pitchers they brought in from other teams before, including Griffin Jax just this season.The Mets ended up doing better than I would have guessed, given Peralta’s disappointing 2026 to date. Second baseman Émilien Pitre was teammates with Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Ryan Waldschmidt at Kentucky, and, like Waldschmidt, Pitre had very strong batted-ball data before going to the Rays in the second round. He still hits the ball harder than you’d expect for his 5-foot-11, 185-pound frame, but he doesn’t lift the ball much, producing ground-ball rates around 50 percent.Despite that, Pitre is hitting .323/.451/.492 in a month-plus in Double A with 30 walks and 17 strikeouts. If you roll in his numbers from his time in High A (I omitted it because he was repeating the level), he’s at a comical 70 walks and 40 strikeouts on the season, giving him the best walk/strikeout rate of any player with at least 200 at-bats in the minors this year. He’s no worse than average at second, and even if he never hits for more in-game power, he could be an everyday player there. I’m sure the Mets are going to try to get him to pull the ball more — he has hit more to the opposite field this year than to his pull side — and see if they can coax some more homers out of that hard contact.Right-hander Gary Gill Hill was the Rays’ 2022 sixth-round pick out of an upstate New York high school. He was a projectable 17-year-old back then, and he’s a projectable 21-year-old now. He can pitch, with feel, command and control, but nothing in his arsenal is better than average right now even though he can touch 96 with the four-seamer. That’s his worst pitch, as it doesn’t miss many bats and hitters have slugged over .500 against it. Meanwhile, his slider is his best pitch and is often in the upper 70s and isn’t going to be as effective against big-league hitters.I bet the Mets give him a sweeper within the week, and he does look like he could still gain some velocity (although some more life to the fastball would help more than another 2 mph). Right now, he’s probably a fifth starter/swingman, but there is reason for hope that he can become more.Outfielder Aidan Smith was half of the Rays’ return from Seattle for Randy Arozarena, but he hasn’t hit at all for two years now, striking out nearly one-third of the time in High A even though he’s repeating the level. He’s also slowed down a good bit since the end of 2024, getting bigger without adding much power. I was a fan when the Rays got him, but he has gone backwards and it’ll take a big reset to make him a prospect again.Overall, it’s a pretty good return for two months of a pitcher who was below replacement level by ERA and below average by FIP this year — one likely everyday player, a pitcher with some upside, and then a former top prospect who’s still young.