2025 Mets Pitching Preview: A.J. Minter

There’s a new man on the mound! One of the bullpen acquisitions this offseason was A.J. Minter, who is coming over from the Atlanta Braves. He spent all of his career with Atlanta, compiling a 5.7 WAR, going 24-29 with a 3.28 ERA, and tallying up 422 strikeouts in 384 games. 

Minter had a solid year in 2024, going 5-4 with a 2.62 ERA. His season was cut short due to injury, playing his last game on August 11 against the Rockies. Minter’s injury was season-ending, as he needed surgery on his left hip, similar to that of Mets starting pitcher David Peterson. Minter got in some work this spring training, with not great results. He pitched 2 2/3 innings, giving up two earned runs and one home run, resulting in a 6.75 ERA. While he said he feels good in an interview with SNY, hopefully, good results will soon follow as he returns from hip surgery.  

A.J. Minter’s arsenal consists of three pitches: fastball, cutter, and changeup. He relies heavily on his fastball and cutter, throwing them 47.7% and 34.5% of the time. His average fastball velocity is 94.5 mph, while his cutter is at 89.4 mph. He is very accurate with his fastball, racking up an 18.1% called strike rate. This means that he was able to locate this pitch in the zone for a strike without a batter swinging at it. His cutter also effectively found the plate with a 15% strike rate. Minter’s swing-and-miss pitch was his cutter. He had an 18.3% swing and miss rate on this pitch, meaning that batters could not make contact with it when they swung.  

He threw his changeup only 93 times during his shortened 2024 campaign. It had a solid swing and miss rate of 17.2%. What is more intriguing about this pitch is that it had the lowest average exit velocity against 75.7 mph and the lowest launch angle of 9.4 degrees. This means that when batters made contact with the change, they were not able to make as strong contact compared to his other pitchers, and these contacts were often resulting in ground balls.  

It is exciting to have a bonafide lefty in the bullpen. While the Mets used a carousel of arms in 2024, look for Minter to be one of the stable ones this season. Minter comes to the Mets with a lot of success as a reliever and can be utilized as a bridge to get to Edwin Diaz in save opportunities. Hopefully, Minter is fully recovered from his hip surgery, which will result in great relief pitching this season because he can play a pivotal piece for the Mets bullpen in 2025. 

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