Pirates, Ben Heller Agree To Minor League Deal

The Pirates have agreed to a deal with free agent reliever Ben Heller, as first reported by Jomboy’s Jack Oliver. Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette adds that it’s a minor league deal for the right-hander. Heller is a client of Onyx Sports Management.

Heller, 32, pitched 18 2/3 innings for the Braves in 2023, logging a 3.86 ERA with a 19.5% strikeout rate, 13.1% walk rate and 49.1% ground-ball rate. He also notched a tidy 3.27 ERA with a 28.9% strikeout rate and 7.6% walk rate in 44 2/3 Triple-A frames between the Braves and Rays organizations.

Once a fairly well-regarded bullpen prospect who went from Cleveland to the Bronx (alongside Clint Frazier, Justus Sheffield and J.P. Feyereisen) in the 2016 Andrew Miller trade, Heller has seen his career decimated by injuries. From 2018-22, Heller dealt with bone spurs in his pitching elbow (2018), underwent Tommy John surgery (2019) and was plagued by a nerve injury in his right biceps (2020-21). He was limited to just 35 2/3 innings between the big leagues and minors combined during that brutal stretch of health woes.

When he’s been healthy enough to pitch in the majors, Heller has been quite effective. He touts a career 3.06 ERA in 50 frames, albeit with suboptimal strikeout and walk rates of 20.9% and 11.8%, respectively. While he was working to rehab all those injuries, Heller restored some zip on his fastball; he flashed a 96.2 mph average as a rookie in 2016 before dipping to 94 mph in 2017-20. He was back up to 95.9 mph on his seldom-used four-seamer with Atlanta this past year, however, and averaged 94.9 mph on his newly implemented sinker.

He’ll need to make the big league roster as a non-roster invitee, but if Heller works his way back to the big leagues in Pittsburgh, he can be controlled for at least three more seasons via the arbitration process.