The Atlanta Braves have needed another quality left-handed reliever for a while now. Dylan Lee and Dylan Dodd have both been very good, but Lee is pretty much the default setup man and Dodd actually performs better against righties than lefties. Danny Young has been okay since returning from the IL, but there have been plenty of times when the lack of a lefty specialist has cost the Braves this season. Unfortunately, one of the best lefty relievers who was available on the market, old friend AJ Minter, just got traded to the Twins, and that presents some problems for Atlanta on several levels.
The odds were always slim that it would be the Braves that landed Minter. As much affection as Atlanta and their fans have for Minter, the sheer fact that he was on the Mets made a trade for the veteran lefty near impossible for the Braves to realistically pull off.
However, losing out on Minter's arm isn't the only problem that his trade presents to the Braves. Not only did the deal set the market for lefty relievers higher than Atlanta probably prefers, but it also solidifies the Twins as buyers at the deadline, which takes some much-needed supply out of the trade market.
The AJ Minter trade puts the Braves in an even more tricky position ahead of the deadline
Some very basic things need to be understood here. The first is that while Minter is having a good season on the mound, the fact remains that he is an older, non-closing reliever with a recent history of injuries who is a rental on a pretty expensive contract for a reliever. Minter should have been relatively cheap to acquire in trade, but the Mets were instead able to add two different top 30 prospects in Billy Amick and Bruin Agbayani in addition to getting all of the rest of Minter's 2026 salary covered by Minnesota.
For the Braves, that creates some issues. While it isn't likely that Atlanta would be pushing their chips in to try and pry Aroldis Chapman away or enter the Mason Miller sweepstakes, they are likely to be pretty active in the relief market, and the price for rental relievers just went up because of this deal.
Making matters worse, the fact that the Twins are confirmed to be buyers at the trade deadline means that the likely supply of quality players on the trade market just took a hit. While Braves fans' fever dream of acquiring Byron Buxton was probably dead on arrival either way, there now seems little chance that top rotation trade candidate Joe Ryan gets moved at all. At .500, the Twins are only one game out of a Wild Card spot, and they are going for it. That diminished supply is not going to make the Braves' lives any easier at the deadline.
In a weird twist, the Twins' newly established trade-deadline position does help Atlanta if they truly want to trade Sean Murphy away. While they would prefer to have Ryan available on the market, Minnesota will also probably keep catcher Ryan Jeffers at the deadline as well. There are a lot of teams that need a real catcher right now, and despite his warts, Murphy could end up being one of the best ones in a very shallow pool of trade candidates at catcher if the Braves actually make him available.
Stay tuned, Braves fans. The stove is really heating up now, and we could be in store for quite the weekend when it comes to trades.
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