Andrew Heaney has made 23 starts for the Pirates this season, but manager Don Kelly told reporters (including Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) today that Heaney will be utilized out of the bullpen for the remainder of the season. The news creates an immediate vacancy in the Bucs’ rotation, as Heaney was slated to start Sunday’s game against the Cubs.
Just to quell any immediate speculation, Hiles reports in a follow-up message that star prospect Bubba Chandler won’t be called up to take Heaney’s spot. Chandler is scheduled to start for Triple-A Indianapolis today, and fellow prospect Hunter Barco just pitched on Wednesday, so he doesn’t have enough rest to be ready for another start tomorrow. Turning to Triple-A pitchers already on the 40-man roster, Johan Oviedo just pitched yesterday, and Tom Harrington is on Indianapolis’ injured list. It is possible the Pirates could just use a bullpen game tomorrow, with Carmen Mlodzinski the likeliest candidate to soak up the majority of innings.
However Pittsburgh decides to ultimately fill the rotation spot, it is noteworthy in its own right that Heaney is headed to the pen. Heaney has posted a 4.99 ERA over 119 innings, with lackluster advanced metrics pretty much across the board except for a decent 7.4% walk rate. The long ball has once again been a problem for Heaney, as only four pitchers in all of baseball have allowed more homers than the left-hander’s 24 big flies. After being a very adept strikeout pitcher earlier in his career, Heaney’s strikeout rates were middling in 2023-24 and have now plummeted to just 16.1% this year.
The Bucs inked Heaney to a one-year, $5.25MM free agent deal last winter, and the thinking behind the signing was that the southpaw would be a veteran bridge for the rotation until some of the younger minor league arms were ready for prime time in the latter half of the season. This tactic assumed that Heaney would’ve been dealt at the trade deadline, though the Yankees were the only team publicly linked to Heaney’s market, and ultimately the southpaw stayed put since Pittsburgh apparently couldn’t find an acceptable offer.
The move to the pen will have an impact on Heaney’s wallet, as his contract contains up to $750K in incentive bonuses related to his innings totals. He’ll receive an extra $50K for pitching at least 120 innings, a $100K bonus for hitting 130 innings, plus an extra $150K for the 140, 150, 160, and 170-inning thresholds. The 120-inning bonus is a lock and 130 innings seems plausible, though the higher bonuses will be harder to achieve with a more limited relief workload.
Between Heaney’s lack of production and the fact that the Bucs never saw him as a long-term option, there are plenty of legitimate baseball reasons behind the southpaw’s removal from the rotation. However, given the Pirates’ notoriously tight budget, the financial element to Heaney’s role change can’t be ignored. It was just last season that Rowdy Tellez was released in late September when he was just four plate appearances shy of unlocking a $200K bonus from his Pirates contract.
Heaney has mostly worked as a starter during his 12 MLB seasons, but he has made his share of bullpen appearances and worked as a swingman. Posting some good numbers as a reliever might help him finish 2025 on a high note, and perhaps give him another way of promoting himself in free agency. It seems likely that Heaney would prefer a starting job if he can find it, but working as an innings-eating reliever or as a swingman could help open up his market to teams wary about his recent results as a starter.
I was very surprised that Heaney was not traded.
So you never seen him pitch since end of April or looked at his data or seen the better players who were traded.
The move to the BP looks like it was to prevent him from reaching the incentives.
Somebody would have given up a lottery ticket prospect for the depth. Or cash considerations. Or just release him.
I don’t think he has been throwing the ball that well. Heaney is a guy that was racking K’s early in the season and he has had a dead arm over his last five, only 10K in 21IP.
He is a good pitcher, has managed to pitch through it, but he can’t get outs for five innings without giving up a big inning.
He could be good in the bullpen. A good move by the Pirates.
If they wanted to prevent him from reaching incentives they would simply dfa him. They are greedy and want more. They will sacrifice reaching couple incentives in attempt for him to gain value and get claimed. Maybe. But if they didn’t want to pay him a bonus they would just dfa release him. Just ask Rowdy Tellez if you don’t believe me.
Not a single team wanted Heaney as far as I know. No one wanted IKF. Neither of those are surprising. So no lottery ticket. No international $. The Pirates would had to give something to dump them. No one wanted Pham which I found surprising. I asked multiple people who would know and nothing. Cherington couldn’t trade them. No interest. Technically no interest. Teams had called and had discussion what if I can’t get who I am targeting. It was a good deadline and their was enough better options available. No one needed the break glass in case of emergency.
I viewed him as a project that other teams might think they could repair to get a cheap number five starter.
Surprised the padres didn’t get him they always acquire a Pittsburgh lefty arm (dick mountain, Martin Perez)
Probably because no one wanted him
I was very surprised the Pirates were trying to peddle their garbage on other teams at the deadline this year. See where I’m goin with this? 🤦♂️
Maybe nobody wanted him.
It still has to be Chandler eventually. There’s no reason to replace Heaney with Mid-Zinski.
Eventually if when he becomes good.
Yeah. Good thinking. We don’t want him to upset this vaunted rotation and hurt the Pirates’ momentum for the playoffs.
Easier to work on things in the minors. Walks too many. Being in the spotlight is probably not gonna help. If he’s not ready he’s not gonna feel real good about his future when he starts getting lit up every other start. Best to call guys up when they have a good chance of experiencing success. Look at Waldrep. Something clicked and within a couple weeks he was in the majors dominating big league teams.
The main thing that “clicked” for Waldrep is getting to pitch to Sean Murphy in the majors.
He is good enough to be the Pirates’ third starter right now. His future is as secure as it can be. He’s not trying to crack the rotation for the 1998 Braves.
He had a nice small stretch before getting the call. The game before he got called up particularly. In that game he went seven and walked only one batter which was a big deal for him. I know what you’re saying but that’s a bit of a unique case with Murph and Waldrep and the work they’ve done together starting in AAA. Idk who the Pirates have catching in AAA but there’s often a defensive specialist backup catcher stashed down there, not to mention very good coaches (ideally).
The one thing I would say is there are also times where a guy really benefits from just getting the call unexpectedly/perhaps undeservedly even. It could take pressure off of trying to get to the show.
With that thinking that the season is lost no playoffs why waste his service time right?
He’s not pitching good. Ideally you don’t even want him great but freaking dominating demanding a call up. Like no doubt there’s nothing in minors for this guy to benefit from he needs to be in MLB. Watch him pitch heck just look at his stats. He’s not that.
Chandler got disgruntled when he wasn’t called up after 18 dominating starts. They clearly WERE manipulating his service time at that point because they were afraid he’d get the full year like Skenes did.
Now they can say “well he hasn’t been good lately” and keep him down, but all they are really showing is how to fumble the bag with a top prospect.
The Pirates claim they want to be competitive in 2026. Of course that’s a joke, but if you take them at their word they should be getting Chandler MLB exposure this year so that he is more prepared to hit the ground running next season.
I would like to see Ashcraft in the rotation instead of being the long reliever
He started yesterday’s game and did well
What a role
One inning shy of a bonus. Cruel.
Bob Nutting strikes again.
He might get it in pen. Just gotta make sure he doesn’t reach the 150s tier.
Pirates should have traded him when he had value.
I’ll never forgive that jabroni for the Field of Dreams game
Heaney pitched against the White Sox in the Field of Dreams? Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve seen a good White Sox seems like 2021 season was a mirage…
Heaney’s highest value was during the first month of the season
Yep. Trade him end of April they could. Even mid May. But by time May was over it was obvious he was toast. Unfortunately most trades happen at deadline end of July. And Pirates needed someone to eat those innings up.
Looks like fornication from the pirates once wasn’t enough.
At first I thought what more does bubba chandler have to do to get called up
But this is the pirates we’re taking about, of course they want to manipulate service time
Bubba has not been pitching well at all for most of the last 2 months or so.
Exactly! Braco gets next call,he’s already 24 . Throw him in see what happens!!
If the Rockies didn’t exist they would be the slam dunk worst franchise in MLB.
Go to another board as.. bite!
The rules the players union agreed to even wanted make teams want to manipulate service time.
This is just he isn’t ready or performing well enough.
Jones mad opening day roster. They could have sent him down end of season but didn’t so he got full year of service time. Skenes they called up early enough that he could win ROY and get full year of service time.
They couldn’t trade him. Not a single team interested. Obviously they don’t want to pay the bonuses. Move to pen will drastically cut down the bonuses with the fantasy dream hopes that he looks well enough that a team will claim him when he is dfa end of month.
They had a day off this week….Paul Skenes will be next up on normal rest tomorrow.
Seems like simple math to me.
The time is now for Chandler. I get the feeling Pittsburgh delaying his MLB clock for service time. Tampa Bay did that tactical strategy for several years.
And he pitches tonight in AAA so it he’ll have to wait a little while longer sadly.
No manipulation. Go look at his stats past month. Even season long but last month especially.
Green Acres (bullpen) is the place for me ..
The Pirates kicked his Hiney off the rotation heh
100% a money decision
That’s fine. Heaney has been one of the worst pitchers in the league the last 2.5 months. He doesn’t deserve an additional cent.
100 $ would be including a prospect to trade him or forcing him to be part of Hayes Bednar trade or something.
They could have just dfa him with no chance of getting any bonus.
Phillies should have traded for him if he’s worthy of being in rotation. What you have better options and don’t want him? Pirates feel the same!
And that wouldn’t be a bad thing if the saved money was reinvested in the on-field product for next year. We’ll see.
Tellez being released still had nothing to do with $.
He should have been released long for that. Why open yourself to that pr problem?
Benching IKF who played all the time the final game of year so he couldn’t get his bonus was way worse but Rowdy is the famous one.
I feel bad for Chandler he should have been up months ago prior to his bad stretch when he started over compensating