The Minnesota Twins have acquired reliever A.J. Minter from the New York Mets in exchange for a pair of prospects on Friday the clubs announced.
Heading back the other way will be infielders Bruin Agbayani, and Billy Amick. Bruin is the son of former left fielder Benny Agbayani who played for the Mets between 1998 and 2001. The Minter deal is the first of what’s expected to be several moves to unload expiring or veteran contracts by New York in the lead up to the MLB trade deadline.
Minnesota has had one of the worst ranked bullpens across the Major Leagues for most of the season. Despite their late inning struggles, they find themselves just a game behind the Cleveland Guardians for the final wildcard spot in the American League at 55-55.
Across 23 appearances this season, Minter has recorded a 2.35 ERA along with 20Ks in 23 innings pitched. Over the course of his big league career, Minter has had brief stints as a closer, due mostly to injuries, with his career high 15 saves coming during the 2018 campaign with the Braves.
The 32 year old was limited to just 11 innings in 2025 due to a lat muscle tear which required surgery. Because of that, he missed a good chunk of spring training and began ramping up baseball activities as the 2026 campaign kicked off. Minter would go on to make his season debut in late May, but has seen his fastball lose nearly 2mph on average, while his strikeout rate has dropped from 32.6% to 21.7%.
Nevertheless, he’ll bolster a Twins relief corps that has the 5th worst ERA (4.92), 2nd worst WHIP (1.52), and 8th fewest strikeouts (364) across MLB.
Minnesota just wrapped up a series against the Kansas City Royals on Thursday and will travel to Seattle for a 3 game set against the Mariners beginning on Friday at 10:10pm ET.
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