{"id":437772,"date":"2026-01-29T23:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T23:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/437772\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T23:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T23:45:07","slug":"mets-sign-craig-kimbrel-austin-barnes-to-minors-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/437772\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets sign Craig Kimbrel, Austin Barnes to minors deals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Mets signed reliever Craig Kimbrel and catcher Austin Barnes to minor league contracts on Thursday \u200dwith invitations to spring training.<\/p>\n<p>Terms were not disclosed, but The Athletic previously reported that Kimbrel will earn a base salary of $2.5 million if he makes the major league roster.<\/p>\n<p>Kimbrel, 37, \u200cwas 0-1 with a 2.25 \u200cERA last season in 14 appearances split between the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros.<\/p>\n<p>He has 440 career saves, second only to Kenley Jansen\u2019s 476 \u200bamong active major league pitchers and fifth all-time. Mariano Rivera (652 saves), Trevor Hoffman (601) \u200dand Lee Smith (478) are \u200bin the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n<p>Kimbrel \u200bwas the 2011 National League Rookie of the \u200dYear and is a nine-time All-Star who has played for nine teams, compiling a 56-48 record with a 2.58 ERA and 1.020 WHIP in 851 career games. \u200dHe has struck out 1,282 batters in 821 2\/3 innings, an average of 14.0 per nine \u200dinnings.<\/p>\n<p>Barnes, 36, \u200dis coming off his second \u200bWorld Series championship with the Los \u200bAngeles \u2060Dodgers, the only team he \u200chas played for in his 11-year career. He batted .214 with two RBIs in 13 games last season and is a career .223 hitter with 35 homers and 162 RBIs in 612 games.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013Field \u2060Level Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Mets signed reliever Craig Kimbrel and catcher Austin Barnes to minor league contracts on Thursday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-437772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}