The Braves announced today that left-hander A.J. Minter has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to left hip inflammation. Fellow lefty Dylan Lee has been recalled from Triple-A Gwinnett in a corresponding move.
At this point, it’s unclear how serious Minter’s injury is or how long the club expects him to miss, but it’s perhaps noteworthy that this is his second IL stint for this issue this year. He landed on the IL due to left hip inflammation May 31, missing just over a month before being reinstated July 1. Per Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Minter is still undergoing evaluation for his current status and the club isn’t sure if he’ll be able to return this season.
Despite the hip issue, he’s managed to post good results when on the mound, as he has thrown 34 1/3 innings with 2.62 earned runs allowed per nine. His 26.1% strikeout rate is a few ticks below his rate from the previous two seasons, but he’s also getting more ground balls.
There might be a bit of good luck in that ERA as he has a .222 batting average on balls in play and 94.2% strand rate, which are both on the fortunate side. But his 16.7% home run per fly ball ratio is essentially double his rate from the two preceding campaigns. FIP gives a pitcher blame/credit for home runs, so that metric has Minter at 4.46 this year, far worse than his ERA. But a metric like SIERA, which normalizes home run rate, is more kind and has Minter at 3.39. That’s still a noticeable gap from his ERA but it’s not far off from the 3.06 SIERA he had last year.
Regardless of how one feels about Minter’s stats this year, it’s a rough development for the Atlanta bullpen. The relief corps should still be in decent shape without him, as the club’s relievers have a collective 3.38 ERA on the year that trails only the Guardians and Brewers. But they’re in a place now where incremental differences might loom large. Their recent skid has dropped them to 61-56, barely clinging to the final National League Wild Card spot with the Mets just half a game back and several other teams within striking distance.
Manager Brian Snitker has been using Minter in key situations. Minter is second on the team in holds behind Joe Jiménez and his average leverage index is third behind Jiménez and closer Raisel Iglesias. Subtracting Minter will make it more challenging for Snitker to navigate the ends of tight games. Lee has strong numbers on the year, with a 2.00 ERA in 45 innings, but mostly in lower-leverage spots.
It also could be a rough development for Minter himself, as he’s an impending free agent. He has a strong career track record with a 3.28 ERA over his 384 appearances with a 29.3% strikeout rate, 8.6% walk rate and 39.9% ground ball rate. But he’s already had one IL stint of over a month this year and another lengthy absence could tamp down his offseason contract offers. He’ll celebrate his 31st birthday on September 2.
No update with Luke Jackson making a mysterious trip to the IL for some bad late-night takeout? You sure??
I was thinking the same thing. Luke being DFA’d this morning should’ve been the first priority
That would have been hilarious going into SFG without L-Jax. AA is too proud to admit a bad deal so soon to a former co-worker.
I’m not sure it would be considered a “bad deal” if they DFA Jackson. Yes, it would look bad, but they also got Soler who is on fire the last 3 games. Let’s see if he can keep it up against the Giants.
Seriously though, what’s happening with Soler in ’25 when Acuña returns and they pick-up Ozuna’s cheap option? They’re not playing Ozuna in the field and wouldn’t have a DH spot for Acuña’s return (not that he’d want to do that). Sure, Soler would be better in LF to minimize him, with CF Harris II providing a lot of coverage, but then you have Kelenic riding pine.
I’m thinking Kelenic is the 4th outfielder.
They will try and move Soler in the off-season even if they have to eat some money.
I doubt it.
Plenty of time to address that later.
I think the braves can use him for mop up games
Soler will be the DH as Ozuna will be gone
You think they trade Ozuna? Braves are going to pick up that club option after his performance this season.
No, I don’t think they’d trade Ozuna. It’s possible, but he’d be an incredible bargain, based on this year’s results, and if there’s one thing that FO cares about more than any other: value. I think it’s more likely they’d flip Soler, hoping his time in ATL would bring his numbers back up to career numbers. He’d have a market.
If they were smart they’d DFA Jackson and call up Daysbel, but all their moves this season have been baffling regardless of the injuries.
I was thinking we would see that too; i have 0
Confidence when Jackson comes in. In 2021 the Braves would have probably sweep the dodgers had Jackson not pitched and gave up the Bellinger home run .
Minters mph has steadily declined in recent years so I figured this was a dead arm IL but oh well. He hasn’t been nearly as good as his era suggest. Still, he’s light years better than the Rosie O’Donnell look alike Luke Jackson. He makes me physically ill when on the mound.
This might honestly be the funniest comment I’ve seen in the few years I’ve been on this site
The Rosie O’Donnell comp is f***ing hilarious. Well done lol
Seems like he has given up more late game
Changing home runs than everyone I can remember.
Minter has coughed up 6 games from my count just by himself. Stats be da**. And
Luke Jackson is saying hold my beer watch this..smh!
This Braves team has zero life. Such a strange contrast with last season, regardless of injuries.
I seriously don’t understand why they keep giving innings to Luke Jackson. Lee and Hernandez are being wasted in AAA
It’s obviously a conspiracy or a personal vendetta against AllAboutBaseball.
Muted
That’s a good place for that bum. Hope his season is over
Problem is that’s exactly what will happen! lol sheesh….Snit has that Booby Cox mentality to let a guy try to redeem himself over and over even if it’s detrimental to the team.
Yup. Cox clones. Cox and Snitker both won a WS with elite talent in spite of their managerial incompetence.
Yep Cox waaaaay overrated and Snitker simply sucks. Looks like an old tortoise sitting there in the dugout. He definitely cannot manage a pitching staff. I would love to have Ron Washington back or talk Dusty Baker into un-retiring. Braves also could use some voodoo and resurrect Sparky Anderson or Earl Weaver. Neither of those great managers would have ever left two relievers in the game to blow an 8-2 lead in the eighth inning to a weak a** team like the Rockies.
And yes I saw my typo and decided to let it ride!….thats how frustrated I am with this Braves team! Lol
Curious what those of you who were boasting about the Braves record and being the first WC 3 weeks ago have to say right now?
Another teachable moment that will go over many heads. As I said a month ago this team has not performed, mainly offensively. But it’s not a team that’s going to win regardless.
Pointing to their record (at the time) and still semi-firm hold in the top WC spot (at the time) was simply more burying of heads in the sand.
Now the roof is caving in which shouldn’t surprise anyone who paid attention all year. It was all fun and games pointing to that record that wasn’t sustainable the way they’ve played but you all still clung to it talking about how they are still formidable.
They technically still hold a slim WC spot. Let’s try this again and see who has learned something. Is this team going to compete this year? Even if they sneak in do you actually expect anything more than an embarrassing display of hitting and early exit?
Would love to see which of you have finally woken up. My guess is very few. Soler was a terrible decision. And knowing the Braves and how they won’t resign Fried you could have argued he should have been dealt. That’s a tougher one to swallow though since you are in playoff contention so I don’t fault the decision to hang on to him. The gutsy play is to see the writing on the wall but like I said, hard to actually pull that type of trigger.
Soler though was inexcusable.
Interesting timing to hate on the Soler trade, when he has been absolutely mashing.
Looking like a great trade at the moment. One could argue it wasn’t the best allocation of resources (I’m not making that argument), but it is wild to call it a “terrible decision” or “inexcusable” at this juncture
Do you think the Kelenic experiment has been a pass or a fail ??
Way too soon to tell. Give him another year
Soler was a good pickup as he can replace Ozuna as DH if need be. Also the Braves really gave up nothing special to get him. Hated to see Matzik go but the minor league player was a weak prospect who would never have played in Atlanta
Please send your resume to:
755 Battery Ave. SE, Atlanta, Ga. 30339.
That must be where their Mailbox is located because the actual Stadium and Battery are technically in Smyrna lol
So I was muted by a Cry Baby, what does that mean?
Reading MLB articles would be much better if we just took a course in logic and realized the absurdity of the FIP stat. It’s so lazy. You wanna look under the surface…look up some basic stats. Quality of contact, strand rates, BABIP,etc. Trying to simplify it all into this bias stat is just making stat geeks into the equally bias end of the spectrum as wins and batting average. It’s 35 innings! It’s pointless. The contact quality is weaker than he usually allows. The HRs are up. The strand rates up. The Ks are likely down because it’s a small sample. It all basically tells us simply that he’s probably gonna continue pitching like AJ Minter usually pitches. The era is a bit skewed probably. But so is the FIP. What’s the point of this? It’s overthinking. Death by analysis. I could see if the walk rate was atrocious. But why would we need FIP?
The fact that FIP needs to be manipulated to resemble a format that looks like a normal ERA is certainly questionable. It’s almost as bad as adding slugging and on-base average together to create an entire new Frankenstein stat that actually means nothing.
Oh it’s far worse than OPS. I mean at least OPS actually factors in most of what a hitter does. OPS is bias but somewhat useful. But FIP doesn’t consider half of what actually happens as significant.
My main thing with Minter here is he’s been good, the FIP is just up because he’s given up more homers and struck out less guys. Iglesias is striking out less and pitching like a HOF reliever. And it’s only a few extra homers. Like I said it’s not enough innings to really mean anything based on WHY his FIP is high. I just don’t like having only homers, Ks, and BB being considered as “in a pitchers control”. I mean that’s absurd. Takes no quality of contact into consideration. Just assumes any non homer contact is a fluke. While rewarding the guys who strike out guys even tho there are also downsides to that like throwing more pitches and less innings. Strider finished 4th in cy young because of this and anybody who saw the season he had should know he wasn’t even that much better than a league average pitcher. The second half was great tho.