How is Anthony Banda Doing After Dodgers Traded Him to Twins?

The Los Angeles Dodgers have seen all sorts of fan favorites come through the organization over the years. One of the more recent fan favorites to play for the Dodgers was left-handed pitcher Anthony Banda, who was a key piece to the team winning the World Series in 2024 and 2025.

Banda quickly caught on with the fan base in Los Angeles, so when the team designated him for assignment before the 2026 season, it came as a surprise.

The move to part ways with Banda was seen more to do with the other guys on the 40-man roster, rather than his skill set on the mound.

The left-hander was eventually traded to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for $500,000 in international bonus pool money. Now with Minnesota, Banda has been part of the Twins' rebuild this season, but things haven't quite gone to plan for him.

So far, Banda has pitched in 15 games for the Twins, posting an ERA of 7.62 over 13 innings of work. The pitcher has struggled to find his form with Minnesota, unlike how he was with the Dodgers.

Over the last two seasons, Banda had registered ERAs under 3.20 for the season. In 2024, the left-hander put up an ERA of 3.08 over 49.2 innings; last season, he posted an ERA of 3.18 over 65 innings of work.

After the trade to the Twins, Banda opened up about the surprise move. The veteran had nothing but praise for the Dodgers organization, despite how everything went down.

"One, don't get me wrong. I love everybody in that organization. Everybody involved in it, have done right by me, love me. When I got the phone call, it was more shock. I couldn't get any words out. I was so shocked," Banda said at the time.

"I wasn't shocked in the sense of maybe a potential trade at some point. I'm not oblivious. There's a lot of lefties that are really talented and stuff, and the whole DFA process was a shocker to me. But it just comes with the roster flexibility and stuff like that. I could tell that [general manager Brandon] Gomes was not happy in the sense of wanting to be on that end of the phone call."

He added: "The way I look at it is, I was just extremely grateful they one, gave me the opportunity to have those special moments that we had. Two, you're not owed anything in this game. So it's like, take what you can get and keep moving forward."

While the Dodgers would have loved to keep Banda, the bullpen was already stacked without him after the addition of star closer Edwin Díaz.

Los Angeles made the tough decision to move on from him, but he got great experience playing for the Dodgers. While his time with the Twins hasn't worked out so far, there is still time for him to turn things around the rest of the way.

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