The Atlanta Braves and their sleeper bullpen

Enter the Minter

The Atlanta Braves raised some eyebrows when they picked a college reliever named A.J. Minter with the 75th pick in the 2015 draft. That Minter was coming off of Tommy John surgery only added to this scrutiny. The Braves bought in to what Minter did prior to surgery, and it appears to be paying dividends. In the current era of “bullpen for the win”, relievers have never had more perceived value. In retrospect, the Braves may have been drafting according to climate, looking to building a future super bullpen.

A.J. Minter’s biggest question mark is always going to be health. That said, health is a question for every reliever, and the Braves were thrilled with getting Minter where they did. Minter burst onto the scene after an August 23rd call-up in 2017. Minter dominated right out of the gates, going on to post some extremely gaudy numbers.

43.3%. That was AJ Minter’s strikeout rate last year. That was second in baseball during his time in the majors, second only to this guy named Craig Kimbrel. Unlike the typical “effectively wild” relievers throughout baseball, Minter posted a microscopic 3.3% walk rate. All told, Minter ended 2017 with 26 strikeouts in 15 innings to go with two walks.

The lefty reliever gets his results with a fastball that averages 96 MPH and an extremely hard cutter that averaged 90 MPH. This particular cutter features slider-like movement, although you wouldn’t be wrong to call it a hard slider. It doesn’t really matter, because when your cutter/slider has a 24% whiff rate, you can call it what you want.

AJ Minter is not given to platoon woes. He held LHBs to a .191 wOBA, because they just couldn’t hit his fastball. Minter coaxed a 29% whiff rate on the pitch, which is absurdly plus for a fastball. Righties? Well they hit like quad-A players against Minter, to the tune of a .291 wOBA. This was thanks to his buzzsaw cutter which simply devoured righties at a 29.9% whiff rate.

Minter can make it as a high level closer because he doesn’t have to rely on batted ball outcomes to achieve his results. You could argue that his groundball rate of 37.5% is too low in this age. It’s not really a concern as Minter is going to reliably strike out more than a third of the batters he faces. His comical 0.96 FIP points to a pitcher who doesn’t rely on contact outcomes.

Minter has been groomed as a closer from the start, as Braves scouts knew they were seeing a very special arm when they drafted him. It is not a matter of if, but when, the Braves will turn to Minter to close out ball games.