NEW YORK (AP) — With reliever A.J. Minter sidelined long term, the New York Mets re-signed fellow left-hander Brooks Raley to a one-year contract Tuesday that guarantees $1.85 million.
Raley is throwing bullpens as he recovers from elbow surgery last May, but it's unclear when he could be ready to join the bullpen. He was placed on the 15-day injured list.
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New York Mets' Brandon Nimmo stands on deck during the first inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals, Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
New York Mets' A.J. Minter pitches during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies Tuesday, April 22, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Mets pitcher A.J. Minter (33) throws during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Friday, April 4, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
New York Mets relief pitcher A.J. Minter throws during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals, Saturday, April 26, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
New York Mets relief pitcher A.J. Minter (33) leaves a baseball game with a trainer during the eighth inning against the Washington Nationals, Saturday, April 26, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Minter is on the IL with a left lat strain after getting hurt Saturday in Washington. He underwent an MRI on Sunday, and season-ending surgery is a possibility.
“What we know right now is we’re dealing with a pretty significant injury here," manager Carlos Mendoza said. “That's why we're providing him with all the information, so he makes the right decision."
Mendoza said Minter has received multiple opinions and was mulling a course of action, with a decision expected in “probably another day or two.” A treatment program of rest and rehabilitation, rather than surgery, remains an option — but the 31-year-old pitcher will be unavailable for an extended period regardless.
It's a significant setback for New York's bullpen, a huge reason the Mets entered Tuesday night's series opener against Arizona with the best record in the majors at 20-9.
Minter joined the Mets as a free agent in January, leaving the NL East rival Atlanta Braves for a $22 million, two-year contract that includes an $11 million player option for 2026.
He has a 1.64 ERA and seven holds in 13 appearances as the top left-handed setup man for closer Edwin Díaz. Minter has struck out 14 and walked five in 11 innings.
“It's a big blow, I'm not going to lie. Not only because of his ability to throw high leverage, but his ability to get lefties and righties," Mendoza said. "But guys will step up. Guys will continue to get opportunities, and we've got to keep going. It sucks for him, especially going down this early.”
A seven-year veteran, Raley made eight appearances for the Mets last season before getting hurt, the last on April 19, and then became a free agent in November. He was 1-2 with a 2.80 ERA and three saves in 66 outings for New York in 2023.
Raley, who turns 37 in late June, is 6-10 with a 4.04 ERA and 12 saves with the Chicago Cubs (2012-13), Cincinnati (2020), Houston (2020-21), Tampa Bay (2022) and the Mets (2023-24). He pitched in South Korea from 2015-19.
“He’s going to go down to Florida and continue to throw his bullpens, so hopefully in the next couple of weeks he starts facing batters, and then we’ll go from there," Mendoza said.
Raley gets a $1.5 million salary this year. His deal includes a $4.75 million team option for 2026 with a $350,000 buyout.
He would get a $250,000 bonus if added to the active major league roster this year and could earn $900,000 more in performance bonuses for games as a pitcher: $125,000 each for 10, 15 and 20, and $175,000 apiece for 25, 30 and 35.
Raley could earn $1.75 million in performance bonuses in 2026 for games as a pitcher: $250,000 each for 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60 and 65.
New York also transferred left-hander Sean Manaea to the 60-day IL, recalled right-hander Kevin Herget from Triple-A Syracuse and designated right-hander Jose Ureña for assignment.
Ureña threw 68 pitches over the final three innings Monday at Washington to get the save in a 19-5 victory. He allowed five runs and seven hits with one walks and three strikeouts.
Mendoza said left-hander Brandon Waddell will be called up from Triple-A Syracuse to pitch some part of Wednesday night's game against the Diamondbacks as the Mets give Kodai Senga his customary fifth day of rest.
Left fielder Brandon Nimmo was out of the starting lineup Tuesday night because he was feeling ill after catching a bug that's been going around the Mets' clubhouse.
“I think last night and this morning, that’s when it got him pretty good,” Mendoza said.
Nimmo matched a franchise record Monday with nine RBIs, including a grand slam and a three-run homer against the Nationals.
“I'm not resting Brandon — especially after that game last night,” Mendoza said with a smile. “He's just sick today. He's in rough shape right now. We've got a lot of guys dealing with this flu, whatever you want to call it, and fever, pretty weak. So he's getting an IV right now and hopefully he's a player for us at some point today. But we've got to give him a couple hours.”
AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum contributed to this report.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
New York Mets' Brandon Nimmo stands on deck during the first inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals, Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
New York Mets' A.J. Minter pitches during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies Tuesday, April 22, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Mets pitcher A.J. Minter (33) throws during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Friday, April 4, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
New York Mets relief pitcher A.J. Minter throws during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals, Saturday, April 26, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
New York Mets relief pitcher A.J. Minter (33) leaves a baseball game with a trainer during the eighth inning against the Washington Nationals, Saturday, April 26, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.
West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.
The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.
Decisions are expected by early summer.
President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.
Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.
“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”
She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.
Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.
She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.
Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.
“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.
Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.
The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.
About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.
"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”
But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.
“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”
Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”
“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.
One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.
Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”
The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.
The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.
The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.
The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.
If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.
“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.
Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)
