This free agent-to-be is hoping to stay with Braves

This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ATLANTA -- A.J. Minter will be on crutches for the next six weeks as he recovers from the season-ending left hip surgery he underwent last month. He’s hoping to heal in time to have a relatively normal offseason.

And if all goes well, the free agent-to-be will get a chance to prolong his Braves career next year.

“I’ve had ups and downs throughout the years, but I’ve learned so much and been part of something special here,” Minter said. “My focus is to keep adding to it. The goal is to get healthy during the offseason and be back here. That’s my No. 1 goal.”

Minter was one of the best products of the massive rebuild the Braves completed nearly a decade ago. Minter, Mike Soroka and Austin Riley were all taken within the first 75 picks of the 2015 MLB Draft.

Six years later, the left-hander was part of the Night Shift, the four relievers who shined while helping the Braves win the 2021 World Series. Minter’s 384 relief appearances rank third in franchise history, trailing only Gene Garber (557) and Mark Wohlers (388).

“He’s done just a tremendous job over the course of his career here,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “Hopefully, he gets back to where he’s full bore again.”

Whether Minter returns will be determined this offseason, while he is recovering from the surgical procedure performed by Dr. Thomas Byrd in Nashville. Byrd found a labrum tear, a hip impingement and a lesion on Minter’s femur. The surgical procedure required performing a microfracture on the hip.

Minter dealt with some hip and lower back discomfort over the past few years, but not to the extent he did this season. His average four-seam velocity dropped from 96.6 mph in 2022 to 95.8 mph in 2023 to 94.5 mph this year. That average dropped all the way down to 93.5 mph during the five August appearances he made before opting to have surgery.

Making matters worse, Minter surrendered a hit or issued a walk to exactly half of the 16 batters he faced in his final three appearances.

“I could still pitch, it wasn’t excruciating pain,” Minter said. “But it was something I knew I needed to get fixed because I wasn’t helping the team.”

Minter was shut down at the end of May with the hope that a cortisone shot and a month’s worth of rest might allow him to get through the rest of the season. There was no guarantee this would work. But even though he will be hitting the free-agent market this winter, he chose to delay going the surgical route.

“When I came back in July, there wasn’t much difference,” Minter said. “I still wasn’t able to use my legs the way I wanted. But I was still putting up good numbers. That was a decision I had to make. I wanted to keep helping the team because I knew we had a good chance we can still make a run at it.”

Minter’s injury might have cost him some money this winter. But he has absolutely no regrets about not undergoing the surgery earlier and possibly creating an opportunity for himself to give teams more assurance about how much he can provide next season.

“The money is going to come,” Minter said. “My goal is to pitch another eight or nine years and hopefully be like [41-year-old teammate Jesse Chavez] one day. Missing a few months, looking at the short term, it sucks. But hopefully, I can get past this and be good to go.”