Diamondbacks Player Spotlight: OF David Peralta
By Blake Benard
When you think of David Peralta one thing comes to mind: he’s a heartwarming story but still overlooked and sadly the odd-man out on this Diamondbacks team.
Back in June of 2013 Peralta was making $700 a month while playing independent ball, with only dreams of making a MLB roster. Now he’s on a big league roster. But let’s start at the beginning.
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The story that is David Peralta starts as a pitcher. That’s what got him signed by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2005. He had a 90mph fastball and some decent off speed pitches but his pitching career suddenly came to an end due to several shoulder surgeries.
Due to labrum issues and the resulting inconsistency on the mound the Cardinals released Peralta in 2009. For any normal player this would be the end of their career. But not for David Peralta. He adapted.
He went home to Venezuela and started playing CF for an independent team and slowly but surely worked his way back to the U.S. With his surgeries and pitching worries behind him, Peralta began to utterly mash the ball consistently hitting in the upper .300’s with speed and power.
His consistence over several years of work finally attracted the attention of the Diamondbacks Independent League Scout and earned him a spot at Visalia and then ultimately Double-A Mobile. Finally thanks to some timely injuries to AJ Pollock and Mark Trumbo, Peralta finally got his chance on the Diamondbacks major league roster in 2014.
Bouncing into the big leagues in June Peralta proceeded to hit .286 with 8 HR, 9 triples and 36 RBI’s through 88 games and proved to be a huge bright spot on an otherwise depressing 2014 Diamondbacks team.
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Despite posting impressive numbers in 2014, Peralta was again overlooked and put on the back burner heading into the 2015 Diamondbacks season. Everybody knew the Diamondbacks had a crowded outfield but confusingly the front office went out and signed Cuban outfielder Yasmany Tomas during the offseason. So what would they do with Peralta?
For most of this year, Peralta has been the fourth outfield behind Pollock, Inciarte, and Trumbo. Yasmany was pushed to the third baseman role after Jake Lamb’s injury. He was regulated to one or two starts a week with pinch hitting role’s in between.
But when the Diamondbacks traded Mark Trumbo to Seattle things started to open up and he saw much more playing time. Still with the return of Jake Lamb from the DL, Tomas was moved to the outfield and again Peralta has been moved back into that frustrating fourth outfielder position. All this has still led to an optimistic season from Peralta’s as his hitting line is .255/.320/.438 with 5 HR and 28 RBI’s.
Whether the role of fourth outfielder is where Peralta’s future lies is yet to be seen. Can he be a starting outfielder in baseball? History seems to think he can, but while a member of the Diamondbacks that may be hard. Regardless, its hard to find a better ‘feel good’ story in baseball than David Peralta and he’s certainly doing everything he can to keep that story going.