Twins Sign Brebbia, Smith to Minor League Deals for Triple-A Depth

Drew Smith spent all of 2025 recovering from the second Tommy John surgery of his career. That alone makes him one of the more intriguing arms headed to CHS Field this spring, and the Minnesota Twins clearly see enough upside in the reclamation project to bet on it.

The Twins signed both Smith and veteran right-hander John Brebbia to minor league deals in late March, with both pitchers assigned to Triple-A St. Paul. The Athletic's Dan Hayes first reported the Smith signing, and the moves fit a recognizable front-office pattern: load Triple-A with experienced bullpen insurance before the chaos of a major league season makes every marginal roster decision feel urgent.

The two pitchers serve different functions in the pipeline. Smith, 32, is the higher-ceiling add. His arsenal leans heavily on a four-seamer and cutter combination, with a slider behind them accounting for roughly 14 percent of his pitches. That pairing produced a career 3.48 ERA and a 24.5 percent strikeout rate across parts of six big-league seasons with the New York Mets. In 19 appearances in 2024 before the elbow gave out again, he posted a 3.06 ERA with 23 strikeouts in 17.2 innings and did not allow a run in 15 of those outings. The Mets still declined his $2 million option for 2026, which tells you how much risk the market has priced into two Tommy John surgeries. Minnesota is essentially betting that Smith is the pitcher he was in April 2024, not the one who went under the knife in July.

Brebbia, 35, is the opposite profile: a known commodity whose role is defined by volume and durability. His multi-inning credibility is real; he logged 24 appearances of four or more outs in a single season with San Francisco, ranking fourth among National League relievers that year. His cutter-heavy approach and sweeper give him the kind of pitch shape versatility that works against both sides of the plate, and he can legitimately eat a bridge inning without the leverage spike that exposes a one-pitch reliever. His 6.62 ERA with Detroit in 2025 raised fair questions about whether he has fully lost the feel for his secondaries, but he had been released from a Colorado minor league deal just six days before landing in St. Paul, which means the market was thin and Minnesota moved quickly.

Neither deal touches the 40-man roster. That is by design. The Twins get experienced arms in the system without surrendering the roster flexibility that becomes priceless in May when a reliever goes down with a forearm strain or a setup man walks four of his first nine hitters of the season. If the St. Paul workload is kind to Smith's elbow and his four-seamer is sitting where it was before the surgery, he becomes a legitimate call-up candidate inside the first six weeks. Brebbia's path to Target Field runs through the same door: one under-performing Twins reliever or one trip to the injured list, and the shuttle north to Minnesota gets very short.

The metrics that matter most to watch early: Smith's velocity relative to his 2024 numbers, and whether Brebbia's cutter command is sharp enough to get ahead in the count. Both answers will come fast in Triple-A.