When Mets' Freddy Peralta is around, everyone seems to be smiling

Freddy Peralta was 16 and he was crying. He was 17 and he was crying. He was 18, and he thinks maybe he was crying then, too.

These weren’t the tears of a fragile boy; they were the tears of a young man who left home and country, didn’t understand the language and survived on Chipotle and a $205 check every two weeks, at least $50 of which he would send back to his parents in the Dominican Republic.

Scouting reports from back then repeatedly call Peralta undersized, and by the time he made his major-league debut at 21, he was still just 5-11, 175 pounds. He proceeded to throw 5 2/3 innings of one-hit ball, striking out 13.

But to understand Peralta now — his success, his personality and the continued defiance of the expectations that once sought to define him — it’s pretty important to know about how it began.

“Sometimes in this game, people forget that we’re humans and we have feelings,” the righthander said this month at the Mets' spring training facility. “Whenever I had a bad game, I would cry . . . I owed [it to my family]. I had the commitment with myself and with my family that I was here for a reason. Thank God I didn’t disappoint them, because you never know. No one knows.”

Which is why he does what he does: His family taught him the value of community, the loneliness he felt in Single-A underlined the importance of a smile, and his success now reminds him that it’s not always as bad as it seems.

When Peralta is at the table, everyone eats (sometimes literally — his Brewers teammates used to just show up to his house on an off day; he’s never alone in the players' dining area).

“It’s so important,” he said. “I try to talk to the young guys . . .  because I remember myself. I try to let them know that whenever they have a bad game, just think about how far you’ve come. It’s not going to be the last one. Just keep working. Get better in the next one.”

Peralta’s father, Pedro, was a farm worker who put everything toward his sons’ education. His mother, Octavia Diaz, stayed at home to look after her three young boys. Their house was a hub — an open-door policy that meant there was always an extra plate or an extra seat.

By contrast, those early years in the United States were isolating, with Peralta carrying so much weight on slim shoulders that nonetheless could produce fastballs in the low-to-mid-90s.

In the few short weeks since joining the Mets in Port St. Lucie, he’s proved to be a whirl of boundless energy that has teammates flocking to him as if by centrifugal force. “Big, smiley guy” is how Brooks Raley described him.

“He’s a great human,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Forget about what he’s able to do on the field. His joy, his presence, his [humility], you just feel it. I’ve been saying it all spring training: You walk into a room and you know that Freddy Peralta is there. It’s just the mood. It’s on people’s faces. Everybody is smiling. He controls the room in a good way.”

Peralta feels like an Epi-pen for a team that last year crumbled under the onus of its own expectations and, often, its own self-seriousness. He started texting his new teammates pretty much as soon as he was traded from the Brewers. It  wasn't uncommon to watch him playing boisterous games of Nerf basketball in the spring training clubhouse, even before his own starts.

“I don’t ask people to come," he said. "They just come. We have that little basketball [net] and it’s like, ‘Freddy, let’s play.’ They don’t want somebody else. Everything is like that — when I go to the clubhouse, weight room, training room, they call me over . . . I can be here having breakfast and next to me there are going to be two more people there.”

And he talks to everyone, and we do mean everyone.

“[Kodai] Senga, he’s the funniest,” Peralta said. “I tried to speak Japanese with him. I tried to translate. He tries to say buenas dias.”

Ask him to name his friends on the team and the list never seems to end. Francisco Lindor, Sean Manaea, Juan Soto, Francisco Alvarez. He stumbles a bit remembering Raley’s name but then calls him a best bud, too.

“Soto, it’s crazy,'' Peralta said. "I knew him and we would [chat] when we’d play in games, but I didn’t know he was that easy to talk to.”

He says he likes the Mets and seems to mean it. Sure, he’s got plenty of motivation — he’s in a walk year and wants a contract extension — but he also comes by it honestly.

For one, he grew up a Mets fan, though he liked the Red Sox, too, because of Pedro Martinez. He has so much family in New York, he’s lost track. He's also just into the vibes.

“When I was traded here, I was like, this is crazy — the team I was always rooting for as a kid,” he said. “I was a fan of the New York Mets when I was very young because of Pedro, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Bartolo Colon. I was a fan of the New York Mets always because I have a lot of family in New York — a lot. Maybe hundreds. I used to listen to them talking about the Mets, Mets, Mets. No one [rooted for] the Yankees.”

He feels “a commitment” to the city, even though he’s a rental. What’s important to him, though, is that he isn’t made to feel that way.

“Some people say, oh, you just signed here for a year,” he said. “I haven’t seen that here. We all treat people the same way — from the clubhouse guys, the workers, the people [manning] the door. They say good morning. It’s nice. I grew up like that. My parents taught me that's the right thing to do in life. And I think it’s nice when you do that. It makes me feel grateful every day and thank God for another day.”

It’s important to have someone like that around, Lindor said. Peralta may be sunny, but that doesn’t help much if he’s also mercurial.

“He’s consistently the same guy from the time he got here,” Lindor said. “He’s always doing something. He brings a lot of positive energy to the clubhouse . . . He’s always positive and a big energy force. People gravitate toward that.”

Raley noted that he “goes out of the way to say hello and check in on guys, and I think that’s all genuine. It’s a unique trait.”

And still, Peralta booms that infectious laugh and wonders how he manages to have so much company all the time. To be clear, he doesn’t mind it.

“When I was in the minors, I knew that was something I was missing — to feel that love every day,” he said. “Because of that, since I’ve been in the big leagues, I love to have people around me. Every time we have an off day, if somebody wants to join me, we can go somewhere together. Whenever you see me, you’re going to see me with people around. That’s just me. It’s just natural.”

Other things have changed, too. He no longer makes $205 every two weeks (he’ll be making $8 million this year and is in line for a huge payday next season). His parents no longer work. One brother plays for the Rockies; he employs his other brother to take care of his family affairs.

It sure would be nice to keep that all going in Flushing for years to come, he said.

“You never know,” he said about the extension. “There are some ways to do it. If it happens — hopefully it goes that way with me and the Mets. Hopefully it works in the future. We may talk and maybe we’ll find a way.”

Freddy Peralta is 29 now, and, to the surprise of no one, he’s smiling.