Andrew Heaney is a solid rotation option for Pirates in 2025
The Pirates add veteran lefty to rotation mix during camp
The Pittsburgh Pirates made an in-camp splash, signing left-handed pitcher Andrew Heaney to a one-year contract that could be worth up to $6 million with incentives.
With the depth that the Pirates have on the pitching side, including some of their best prospects, it was a bit of a shock but a move they’ve looked to in the past.
Whether it be Tyler Anderson, Jose Quintana, or Rich Hill, the Pirates have a knack for adding veteran left-handed starting pitchers to help fill out the rotation.
Heaney, 33, has been a solid, back-of-the-rotation starter for most of his career, posting a 4.45 ERA with a slightly better 4.06 xFIP in over 1,000 innings at the major league level.
As much as the rotation is set up to be the team's strength, this adds even more depth to the position group.
What Heaney offers
According to statcast, Heaney threw six pitches last year—four-seam, sinker, slider, change-up, curveball, and cutter. The change-up, curveball, and cutter were all under 5%, and he primarily focused on the four-seam (50.2%).
While he averaged 91.5 mph, his four-seam graded out well thanks to some solid pitch shape characteristics, and he attacked the strike zone with it, posting a 57.6% zone rate. He doesn’t miss a lot of bats with it, but it sets up his other pitches well from the top of the zone.
The slider was his best swing-and-miss pitch, getting hitters to whiff 36.5% of the time and then chasing 41.3% as well.
His ‘sinker’ is more of a flat, two-seam fastball that he also threw at the top of the zone. It got 17.8” of vertical break to it while posting a flat VAA of -4.5. That and the change-up were the pitches he got the best extension on.
Over on FanGraphs, the sinker graded out as his best pitch in 2024, with a 109 Stuff+.
Historically, it’s been the four-seam (106) that has graded out the best. Last year was the first that he was listed as throwing a ‘sinker.’
Where does he fit?
This is the most interesting question about the signing. Heaney has thrown over 300 innings the past two seasons combined, so he isn’t coming in to be a reliever.
They have a pretty set first four to their rotation: Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller, Jared Jones, and Bailey Falter.
Entering camp, it was expected that Johan Oviedo may have had the inside track toward winning that fifth spot but he is also returning from Tommy John surgery. As of now, it doesn’t appear he’s behind in his rehab, but that isn’t a guarantee that he will be an option to begin the season.
In fact, this probably states more to the fact that he may not be ready to take a starter’s spot, so they decided to add another veteran.
There’s the obvious comparison to Falter, another lefty in the rotation coming off a solid season as a back-of-the-rotation starter.
Going with some base numbers, Heaney definitely had the edge in individual performance, even though his record was 5-14 (Texas finished under .500 after winning the World Series the previous year).
They finished with identical Stuff+ (FanGraphs) at 95, but Heaney again edges out Falter in career Stuff+ (100 to 98) and xFIP (4.06 to 4.46).
For as much talk as 1-4 being locked up, this gives the Pirates a solid addition that can fill in if Falter takes regresses in any way. In the meantime it gives the Pirates a very strong rotation, while giving Oviedo time to build back up.
How does this impact the prospects?
Arguably the four best pitching prospects in the Pirates’ system are in camp, two on the 40-man (Braxton Ashcraft and Mike Burrows) and another two as NRIs (Bubba Chandler and Thomas Harrington.
You could make a strong argument Hunter Barco is the fifth best, and is also in major league camp. There just seems like a little to no shot he breaks camp with the Pirates.
Adding Heaney allows Chandler and Harrington to go back to Triple-A to get more seasoning, unless one completely blows the doors off during spring training. I’ve mentioned before on this site that I believe Chandler closing out 2024 is ahead, as far as development, of where Jones was at the end of 2023.
Still, Jones had 16 Triple-A games under his belt heading into 2024, Chandler had just seven.
Burrows and Ashcraft are a little different, as they are already on the 40-man roster. Someone like Burrows could fit well in the ‘Luis Ortiz’ role from 2024, as could Ashcraft. They’ve both dealt with injuries in their career and working out the bullpen and as a spot starter could help preserve their arms.
If not, they could head to Triple-A as well to add even more depth at Indianapolis.
Is a trade imminent?
I don’t think this means that they are on the verge of making a trade, although I wouldn’t say it isn’t impossible we see that type of move in the near future.
The Pirates certainly have the starting pitching depth to make a move for a hitter and it not hurt them too much in the upper levels.
You don’t want to mess too much of your depth, as injuries happen, and they can spiral out of control sometimes. We saw what happened to the Marlins, who had an incredibly deep pitching staff, filled with some veterans and prospects—only to see a chunk of them miss significant time with injuries.
For all the depth the Dodgers have, they have three or four young pitchers on the 40-man who won’t likely pitch this season at all as they recover from surgery.
The most likely scenario I see happening, is the Pirates wait to see how the season unfolds, see if some players take a step up and then make a move to address the positions where they didn’t.
In the meantime, while it wasn’t a bat, this was an incredibly solid signing for the Pirates, especially at that price. His 2.2 fWAR was the same as Keller’s in 2024, and their xFIP were .10 off each others.
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could still trade Keller for Heston and give Cantina the money he wants