The Pirates announced Tuesday that veteran left-hander Andrew Heaney has been designated for assignment. His spot on the roster will go to center fielder Oneil Cruz, who has been reinstated from the injured list. Pittsburgh also optioned infielder Ronny Simon to Triple-A Indianapolis and recalled right-handed reliever Dauri Moreta from Triple-A.
Heaney, who turned 34 in June, signed a one-year deal in the offseason, guaranteeing him $5.25MM. Early in the 2025 campaign, it looked like one of the best low-cost pickups of the winter by any team. The veteran southpaw raced out to a strong start, tossing 78 1/3 innings of 3.33 ERA ball in his first 14 trips to the bump. Heaney posted a sharp 7.5% walk rate in that time, and while a pedestrian 18.5% strikeout rate and somewhat elevated 1.26 HR/9 mark pointed to some degree of regression — he had a 4.47 FIP and 4.51 SIERA in that time — the reckoning was more emphatic than anyone could’ve reasonably anticipated.
A pair of consecutive seven-run drubbings in mid-June proved to be the beginning of a two-month spiral from which Heaney simply hasn’t been able to recover. Over his past 42 innings, he’s been trounced for 43 earned runs (9.21 ERA) with just a 12.1% strikeout rate. Opponents have averaged a staggering 2.79 home runs per nine innings pitched during that span.
The Pirates recently demoted Heaney to the bullpen, but the change in roles didn’t prove beneficial. He’s surrendered six runs in 1 1/3 innings across his two most recent relief outings, including five runs in just two-thirds of an inning last night.
Some onlookers might cynically liken Heaney’s DFA to the Pirates’ much-maligned 2024 decision to designate Rowdy Tellez for assignment when he was just four plate appearances shy of a $200K bonus. Given the prolonged nature of Heaney’s struggles, this looks to be a much different scenario. In fact, last night’s two-thirds of an inning proved to be just enough to push Heaney over 120 innings on the season (120 1/3 overall), which unlocked a $50K bonus.
Had the Pirates kept trotting him out there, Heaney could’ve unlocked further incentives. (He’d have taken home another $100K at 130 innings and $150K at 140 innings pitched.) However, based on his past two months, there’s no incentive for the team to keep giving him opportunities. Heaney had ample opportunity to pull himself out of the slump and wasn’t able to do so. In the end, he’ll wind up earning $5.3MM this contract, and the innings that would’ve gone to him will instead go to younger arms whom the Bucs can control beyond the current season.
Pittsburgh surely tried to find a trade partner prior to the deadline, but even then, Heaney was riding a streak of 28 runs surrendered in his past 28 2/3 innings. He’d been tagged for 15 home runs in his past 50 innings. It’s easy to imagine most teams seeking pitching felt they could get comparable or better results simply sticking in house.
With Heaney now off the 40-man roster, he’ll be placed on waivers. It’s largely irrelevant whether that’ll be outright waivers or release waivers, as it’s unlikely anyone will claim the remaining $932K on his contract after struggles of this magnitude, and he has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency while retaining the remainder of his guaranteed salary. Barring what would be a very surprising claim, he’ll be a free agent within the next few days. He could latch on with a new club as pitching depth for the final month of the season and could technically be postseason-eligible if he signs with a new team prior to Sept. 1 — though he’d obviously have to turn things around in a hurry to be considered for a spot on anyone’s October rosters.
Bring on the ‘So they don’t have to pay him incentives’ comments from the same people who are banging down the door to ‘play the kids’.
Hot takes.
Only the hottest
Nope he just got his bonus yesterday. Should have been done before he got bonus.
You’re half correct AI. He hit 120 innings, so he earned his first incentive of 50K. He had incentives for 130 IP (100k) and 150K for each threshold hit of 140 ip, 150 ip, 160 ip, 170 ip. Of the $750K potential incentives they allowed him to reach the first. Regardless he got canned cuz he sucked not because of the other 100K he was going to earn.
Nope. Fully correct. Nothing factual in my statement was wrong. I been talking about his bonuses for weeks and most people are aware so no need to mention it. DFA sooner is opinion although I would guess a popular opinion.
Yep, people have no idea what they want. Besides, every veteran starter signs deals with incentives yet they only bring it up for the pirates. Why is no one shedding tears for Marcus Stroman??
Heaney was solid for a stretch, sure, I guess they got their moneys worth from him.
Yeah they definitely got what they paid for. He started hot and has sucked since May. The dude just allowed 5 earned in 7 batters last night he’s cooked.
No one is shedding any tears for Stroman because he missed so much time from injury, it was virtually impossible to get enough innings for his option to vest. And he sucked.
Not a hot take-If you were being serious the two things that you said are mutually exclusive.
You seem to agree that he did not deserve bonus money.
But Moreta is a much better pitcher and deserves to pitch in the ML’s.
And he is young if not a kid.
And the Pirates will actually be better for it.
The only reasons that they kept Heaney are because he is left handed and they would leave almost $1M on the table.
But he was terrible enough for even Bob Nutting’s taste.
Moreta is not one of the players anyone is beating the table for but I see what you’re saying. On top of that, Moreta is arb eligible next season. The Pirates have to either non tender him if they kept him down or tender him a contract next year based on previous years and AAA numbers during a rehab. Not a good business decision especially for a guy like Moreta who has shown some success at the big league level. Why keep Heaney around, who let alone isn’t going to be on the Pirates but maybe even out of the whole league, when you need to see what Moreta has before making a decision in 3 months?
I don’t really care about the bonus incentives to be honest, Heaney didn’t deserve another dime though no. That still had no factor into this decision.
Good catch on Moreta.
He has pitched pretty well when healthy for the Pirates.
They cannot continue to give up depth players though in case some of these other young pitchers get hurt.
The Pirates are fat dumb and happy with the good young pitchers but I remember just last year and the year before when the Bidos and Hellers and Woodfords were among many other AAAA pitchers to be brought up near the end of the year because of injuries.
Cheapskate Bob Nutting would rather pay Heaney a $50k bonus than a minor leaguer league minimum!
Interesting
Braves on line 2.
Who’s on line 1?
Hean Dog nooooooooo!
*Heandog
Who needs bodies on the mound to finish the season?
Andrew Heaney > JP Sears.
This would be a good pick up for the stretch run AJ.
Maybe if you’re looking at experience as a virtue. Otherwise, Heaney doesn’t seem like much of an upgrade over Sears.
It is an upgrade if a 9.33 era is better than a 5.03 era.
He stinks
Beyond Stink!
Couldn’t be a proper season without a veteran Pirates starter going to the Padres.
Tow-Only if the Padres do not want to make the playoffs.
First ballot hall of famer getting disrespected by the Pirates of all teams
He won’t be picked up so you change the Pirates to all the Major League teams.
Who’s a first ballot HOF?
Green Acres is the place for Mr Heaney
This guy stinks. They DFA’d him because he lost his stuff not because of incentives
He should have been gone at the trade deadline. At least the Pirates could have got a box of balls.
There were no takers apparently.
KBO calling.
they tried to trade him at the deadline, no one wanted him
F
Should have done it at 119.2 innings. They would have won yesterday and saved Nutting 50k
Nutting Williams are the problem. They were more worried about the pr hit of dfa before bonus than the good of the baseball team.
Well people still think Nutting is cheap and awful. His approval rating is 0. This should have been done before today.
I agree wholeheartedly but still think that they either should have traded him much earlier or released him immediately after the trade deadline since he has been awful since mid June.
Tigers- go get him. Mize is Miserable. So is Flaherty. He’s also a lefty.
Don’t do it Tigers.
The Tigers have won Mize’s last 5 starts and 8 of his last 10. Most starters should be so “miserable”…
Heaney’s five earned runs last night cost owner Bob Nutting $10K per run because of the innings bonus in Heaney’s contract. He’s laughing all the way to the bank.
Look at his plummeting K rate. In 2023 and 2024 he was striking out almost a guy an inning. This year, it’s down to 6.3/9 IP. In July and August,, he’s down to 4.3 K’s/9. vs. 6.9 K/9 April-June. Something’s clearly wrong besides run prevention so might as well move on.
Heaney had a very good April but was downhill the rest of the season
I was just checking Heaney’s stats for this season and he was hugely better at PNC Park than everywhere else. At home, even when he regressed, he had an OPS against at just over 700. On the road?? Around 940!!
Did no one want him at the deadline? The only reason they signed him to a one year was to dump him at the deadline
There was an article on this site that the Yankees were interested before the deadline. Could have been nothing to it, could have been the Yankees wanted the Pirates to pay the remainder of his deal and they didn’t want to.
What scares me is with Buehler demoted to the bullpen and Fitts leaving last nights game with “right bicep tightness” that Breslow doesn’t come calling
The start of the drastic drop in Heaney’s effectiveness in the middle of June corresponded to Chandler’s in AAA.
Then was the time to trade Heaney and bring up Bubba.
At that point the Pirates knew that it was a wasted season as far as competing was concerned.
Pirate fans actually knew that it was a wasted season when they brought back Shelton.
what’s the over/under on how many times Cruz struck out in tonight game?
3.5 I think that he is hitting 103 against lefthanders.
Whatever happened to earning a bonus through production?
I mean, Jesus Christ, we’re still on Tellez? The only thing they did wrong was give him enough ABs to approach the bonus.
He had a whole season to produce and solidify 1B and he didn’t.
Should have dfa’d him a game before to save 50k if I’m reading his incentives in his contract right .
They were hoping that they could save $932,000 thinking that he could be the left handed reliever.
This is different than Tellez. Heaney doesn’t GAF . If you watch him pitch he’s not pitching he’s throwing the ball to eat innings. Pirates have enough guys who want to pitch to not keep running this guy out there.
I think the Yankees interest in Heaney was if Pittsburgh was willing to include IKF. That didn’t happen, so Yankees moved on to Rosario.
I would have done that deal just to get IKF to a good team to give him a chance.
He always hustles and is a good team player.
They could have received the three young players that they received for Bednar and been happy.
Oviedo was pitching well last night, Bucs up 4-1 after 4. He was at 50 pitches. Then they take him out and put Heaney in and hey presto it’s 6-4 Cards. Suspect they sacrificed this game to get Heaney to his incentive innings total so they could dfa him and not be accused of another Tellez situation. Not that wins mean anything to them at this point but hate to see them just throw one away.
A day late and a dollar short. $50k to be exact.