The Crane Pool Forum

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.



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.



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.”

Centerfield wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2025 4:14 pm I'm guessing that the Mets did their due diligence and that David Stearns is also not just finding out about the surgery.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2025 4:22 pm

Centerfield wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2025 4:14 pm I'm guessing that the Mets did their due diligence and that David Stearns is also not just finding out about the surgery.

Maybe we should call him, just in case?

Centerfield wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2025 3:20 pm Love this move. Not as sexy as Tanner Scott, but has a longer history of success.