Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on LHP A.J. Minter

Scouting Report

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To get a good look at Minter, I checked out 6 of his appearances. Total in those appearances, he allowed one run on 6 1/3 innings pitched, giving up only 2 hits and 1 walk, striking out 12 hitters.

Size/Delivery

Minter is listed at 6′ and 205 pounds. He could even be another 10-15 pounds bigger than that, but it’s not “bad” weight by any means. He does not have any size projection left, but that’s not surprising as he’s 23 at this point.

Minter pitches exclusively out of the stretch in the bullpen, which has severely calmed his delivery. In finding some old college video of Minter, he had a lot of tilt and lean in his delivery that could throw off his balance and put stress on the arm. Out of the bullpen could actually help him to stay healthy as he stays more balanced throughout his delivery.

Minter starts with a slow leg lift, bringing his right knee just under knee level. From that apex of his load, he explodes quickly to the plate, releasing the ball from a high 3/4 arm slot. Due to the explosiveness of his move toward the plate, one thing I noted in the games where I saw Minter have any issue with control (and there weren’t many) was that he can lunge forward a bit too much with his weight and need to tap his foot earlier than his typical landing spot, and that leaves his arm dragging a bit, and he has a habit of dropping all the way down below 3/4 to a low 3/4 slow when he has that happen.

Pitches

The pitch that everyone knows of with Minter is his big time fastball. As a starter in college and with Team USA, he sat around 91-93 with the fastball and touched 96-97. As a reliever now full-time, he’s sitting 94-97 and touching 98-99, and that fastball has some ridiculous arm side sink and run. He works the fastball up and down in the zone, adjusting the batter’s eye throughout the at-bat.

Minter has a change up as a starter, but he rarely uses this in the bullpen (I saw 2 in the games I witnessed). His primary breaking pitch is a slider that runs in the mid-80s, and I saw it clocked as high as 89 in one AA appearance I viewed. He gets unique action on the pitch as he does use the slider low in the zone, but it has a cut fastball look to it, with nearly no depth in the pitch, but some excellent horizontal movement, working in on left-handed hitters and away from righties.

The change could become something effective even out of the bullpen as Minter pitches so much off of the fastball that a change could really keep hitters guessing on his fastball. I could not get a good look to give a good report on the change.

Video

Next: Future outlook