NEW YORK — The Yankees had Oswald Peraza for four years. They never truly gave him a chance. Then they traded him for a minor leaguer and international bonus pool money.
He left quietly. This week, Peraza came back to Yankee Stadium and made them pay.
The 25-year-old third baseman torched his former team across the four-game series between the Angels and the Yankees. He went 5-for-10 with two home runs and four RBI in three starts. He batted cleanup. He played sharp defense. He looked like exactly what the Yankees always believed he could be.
Before the series began, Peraza kept his tone measured. He had nothing to prove. He just came out and showed it anyway.
“A lot of good memories here,” Peraza said. “It’s business, it’s baseball. Now I’m with the Angels and enjoy every day.”
How the Yankees buried a prospect
The story of Oswald Peraza in New York is a case study in how an organization can waste a player.
Peraza first reached the big leagues in September 2022. He was electric. In 18 games, he hit .306 and went 15-for-49. He was 21 years old. That winter, he and Anthony Volpe were spoken of as the next generation of Yankees infielders. The hype was real.
Then the blockades went up.
The Yankees entered 2023 with DJ LeMahieu and Josh Donaldson occupying the corners. Volpe won the starting shortstop job in spring training, which was justified. But that left Peraza with nowhere to play. He was sent to the minors, called up when injuries demanded it, then sent back down again. He never got a sustained run. He never got consistency.
In 52 games during the 2023 Yankees season, Peraza hit .191. That is a predictable outcome for a 22-year-old absorbing intermittent at-bats behind established veterans on a contending roster. Struggling under those conditions is not a character flaw. It is what happens when a young player is denied rhythm.
In 2024, the pattern continued. Peraza spent most of the year in Triple-A. He came up when the Yankees needed a body, filled a role, and went back down. He never had a chance to establish himself. He never got a clear message about his future with the organization.
A brief shot, then the door closes
The 2025 season was supposed to be different. The Yankees finally gave Peraza 71 games. He slashed .152/.212/.241 with a .453 OPS. It was the worst offensive season of his career.
Context matters here. By 2025, Peraza had spent three years bouncing between Scranton and the Bronx. He had never been allowed to build confidence at the major league level. He had never been trusted with a real role. When the Yankees finally gave him extended time, it came too late and without the support structure that young hitters need.
The Yankees had also been inconsistent with how they used him. He was not given a defined role in the lineup. He was not given the kind of coaching investment that the organization’s premier prospects received. He was, in the language of prospect development, left to figure it out on his own at the worst possible time.
When his 2025 numbers came back poor, the Yankees did not look inward. They moved on. Last summer, Peraza was traded to the Los Angeles Angels for Wilberson De Pena, a minor league outfielder, and international bonus pool money. It was a nothing return. It sent a clear message that the Yankees had written him off entirely.
With the Angels, everything changed
In Los Angeles, Peraza found something he never had in New York: on-field consistency.
He got regular playing time. The results came quickly.
In 2026, Peraza has hit four home runs in just 18 games with the Angels. Last season, he managed five home runs across 106 games spread across two organizations. Over his last seven games heading into Thursday’s Yankees series finale, he was slashing .368/.478/.947 with three home runs, six RBI, four walks and two stolen bases.
He is batting cleanup for the Angels. That is a statement from a coaching staff that believes in him. It is also a statement that would have been unimaginable during his Yankees years.
The revenge series at Yankee Stadium
Peraza saved his finest work for his old ballpark.
On Tuesday, he went 3-for-3 with a solo home run in the Angels’ 7-1 win over the Yankees.
On Thursday, he batted cleanup and went 2-for-4 with three RBI. He pulled a two-run home run to left field off Yankees starter Max Fried in the first inning. It was the first homer Fried had allowed all season. Peraza brought Angels back in the game.
The Yankees answered back and took a 3-2 lead. Then in the sixth inning, with the game tied and Fried laboring, Peraza drove an RBI double into the outfield that scored a run and ended Fried’s afternoon. The Angels scored four runs in the inning and never looked back. Final: 11-4 Angels.
Peraza also walked and stole a base in the seventh. He did everything. He was everywhere.
Boone says what no one in the Yankees organization wanted to admit
After the game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone was asked directly about Peraza. It was a loaded question. Boone had managed Peraza, watched him struggle, and run the team that dealt him away for almost nothing.
Boone did not sidestep it. His words were honest and, for Yankees fans, difficult to sit with.
“He looked like what we were excited about several years ago,” Boone said. “And then obviously, went through a couple of years of struggling. He’s super talented, always has been. He’s fast-twitched, has power, can run and can do all those things. Clearly, in as good a place as he’s been in a few years. And he absolutely hurt us in this series.”
Read that quote carefully. Boone is describing a player with all the tools the Yankees identified. He is also, without saying it directly, describing a player whose development was mismanaged at every stage of his Yankees career.
Peraza is not a sudden discovery. He is not a late bloomer. He is a player who needed consistency, a defined role, and organizational trust. The Yankees provided none of those things across four seasons. The Angels provided all of them in less than one.
For Yankees, the regret will take longer to fade.
What do you think? Was letting go Peraza a mistake?
