December is always a month of predictions, rumors, and conjuring up what your favorite baseball team can to make improvements for the next season. As for the Minnesota Twins, they can't get away from the trade rumors, but they finally made a confirmed deal.
The Twins signed former Mets reliever Grant Hartwig, a 27-year-old right-hander who split the 2025 campaign with Triple-A Syracuse (Mets) and the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball. Hartwig was signed to a minor league deal, but he will reportedly get an invite to camp this upcoming spring.
Twins sign reliever Grant Hartwig in hopes he bolsters Minnesota's bullpen in 2026
The #MNTwins MiLB deal with reliever Grant Hartwig includes an invite to big league camp. He spent 2025 with Mets AAA and a team in Japan, last pitched in the bigs with the Mets in 2024. pic.twitter.com/IS4BaRbqwe
— Darren Wolfson (@DWolfsonKSTP) December 4, 2025
Hartwig appeared in 28 games with the Mets in 2023, then four more in 2024. He's produced a -0.5 bWAR in that timespan, and never got another chance in the bigs since. But if Hartwig can prove himself in spring training, then he will have an opportunity to join a bullpen that definitely needs some help.
Hartwig, standing at an imposing 6-foot-5, releases his pitches from a 14-degree angle. This makes for an interesting arm release from such a tall pitcher, which causes for his sinker-sweeper combo to be more lethal. His problem is just trying to find the strike zone more frequently on these high-movement offerings.
His career BB/9 is 4.1 across 42 innings, which puts his WHIP north of 1.400. If he can find a way to land his pitches with more conviction, which have a ton of horizontal movement, there could be room for him in Minnesota. Hartwig has pitched in one game at Target Field, allowing no runs on two hits, recording one out. If things pan out for him in March, maybe we can see plenty more of him at the big league level. Who knows, maybe the Twins rediscovered a diamond in the rough.