Twins, Luis García Agree To Minor League Deal

The Twins and veteran right-handed reliever Luis García are in agreement on a minor league contract, reports Bobby Nightengale of the Minnesota Star Tribune. He’ll report to their Triple-A club in St. Paul for the time being. García is repped by agents Larry Reynolds and Rosie Lopez-Herrera.

García, 39, opened the season with the same Mets team against whom the Twins will open a road series tonight. He signed a one-year, $1.75MM contract in the offseason but was cut loose after only six appearances. In that time, García was knocked around for six runs (five earned) on 11 hits and a pair of walks with four strikeouts. The resulting 7.11 ERA wasn’t pretty, but García posted a hearty 3.42 earned run average just last year between the Dodgers, Nats and Angels. In 55 1/3 frames last season, García fanned 20.9% of his opponents, issued walks at an 11.2% clip and kept 49.7% of batted balls against him on the ground.

While last year’s results were generally solid, García’s early work with the Mets did raise some red flags. His average sinker velocity plummeted from 96.9 mph in 2025 to a flat 94 mph in 2026. His splitter and changeup experienced similar velocity drops. He still induced chases at a massive 46% rate and posted a strong swinging-strike rate, but the Mets were apparently disheartened enough by the nearly three mile-per-hour drop in his sinker to quickly move on.

The Twins can use all the help and experience they can get in the bullpen. Minnesota’s 2025 trade deadline sell-off centered around dismantling what had been one of the game’s best relief corps in order to bring in a host of prospects and controllable young big leaguers. The Twins then did little to address the ‘pen in the offseason, with their primary adds being Taylor Rogers (on a one-year, $2MM deal), Anthony Banda (in a small trade after he’d been designated for assignment by the Dodgers) and Eric Orze (in a trade with the Rays).

Predictably, the Twins have had one of the worst bullpens in baseball this year. Minnesota relievers rank 23rd in the game with a 5.07 earned run average, but there’s reason to think even that might be the product of some good fortune. The Twins’ bullpen has the fourth-worst strikeout rate in MLB. They’re tied for the third-slowest average fastball (93.4 mph) and have the third-worst swinging-strike rate (8.7%) of any relief corps in the game.

Adding a 39-year-old García to the mix isn’t going to fix that collection of issues, but given the righty’s 3.86 ERA from 2021-25, it’s not a stretch to think he could right the ship and help a bullpen that generally lacks experience. García’s velocity is down this year, but there’s little harm in taking a nearly free look at a veteran reliever who, in addition to that 3.86 ERA over the past five seasons, has punched out a solid 22.3% of his opponents against a sharp 7.8% walk rate and a huge 53% ground-ball rate.