The Twins are going to sign right-hander Grant Hartwig to a minor league deal, reports Darren Wolfson of KSTP. The ACES client will also receive an invite to major league camp in spring training.
Hartwig, 28 this month, has a limited big league track record. He tossed 42 innings for the Mets over the 2023 and 2024 seasons. He allowed 24 earned runs, giving him a 5.14 ERA. He struck out 18% of batters faced and issued walks at a 10.1% rate, both subpar figures, but induced grounders on 46.5% of balls in play. He averaged in the mid-90s with his four-seamer and sinker while also mixing in a cutter, slider and changeup.
In June of the latter campaign, he required surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee. He was non-tendered at the end of the year and re-signed on a minor league deal. In July of 2025, he headed overseas to play for Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He posted a 3.65 ERA for the Tigers in a small sample of 12 1/3 innings.
As a minor leaguer, Hartwig has generally been able to get strikeouts but hasn’t featured pristine control. Dating back to the start of 2023, he has thrown 94 2/3 innings on the farm, mostly at Triple-A. In that time, he has a 4.47 ERA, 25.6% strikeout rate and 11.3% walk rate. In 2025, he was out to a good start, having tossed 23 2/3 innings with a 3.42 ERA, 29.2% strikeout rate and 8.8% walk rate.
That was enough to get him interest in Japan but he didn’t make the most of the opportunity there. In his limited sample of work with the Tigers, he only struck out 15.1% of batters faced while giving out walks at a 13.2% clip. It’s always tough to find meaning in that kind of sample size but that should be especially true about a guy making a midseason move from MLB to Japan.
For the Twins, they stripped down their bullpen at last year’s deadline. They sent out Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Louis Varland, Brock Stewart and Danny Coulombe. It’s unclear whether they plan for 2026 to be a sort of reset year or if they plan to reinvest in the roster in an attempt to compete. Either way, they will need some fresh bullpen arms. If Hartwig can crack the roster, he is still optionable and has less than a year of service time. That means he can provide roster flexibility and affordable control for the foreseeable future.
Photo courtesy of Reinhold Matay, Imagn Images