SAN DIEGO — Another question was answered Tuesday afternoon: Who’s next? The Rangers once again were true to their word, adding left-handed starting pitcher Andrew Heaney to a rotation that includes Jacob deGrom, Jon Gray, Martín Pérez and Jake Odorizzi. Here’s the thing about questions, though: They usually don’t go away so much as pass the baton to the next one. In this case: Does the signing of Heaney mean the Rangers are out on Carlos Rodón, Kodai Senga or any other starting pitchers?
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That would seem to be the implication. Per a source familiar with the contract, Heaney’s deal is for two years and $25 million, but it could jump to as much as $37 million with incentives. There’s also an opt-out after the first year. The length of the contract would seem to fit perfectly with the Rangers’ timeline — Jack Leiter, Owen White and Cole Winn (at least) should be big-leaguers in time for the 2024 season (if not before), so a short-term contract seems to make more sense for Texas than, say, the six-year deal Rodón is looking for.
That’s not to say that Texas didn’t want Rodón. The Rangers have been widely rumored to have maintained interest in the pitcher who many consider the second-best arm on the market — Texas signed the first — but with multiple teams bidding for Rodón’s services, it’s possible Scott Boras managed to find the mysterious upper boundary on owner Ray Davis’ spending-spree budget.
President of baseball operations and general manager Chris Young declined to say whether the team was out on Rodón or Senga, but his answer could be interpreted to mean that unless something changes, any further additions would be further down the free-agent power rankings.
“I probably prefer not to answer at this point,” Young said. “I think we’ll just step back and look — I’ve said all along, we’ll continue to look for the best ways, always, to improve the club. I don’t know. We’ll just see what transpires out there.”
So Heaney it is, and he’s not a bad option. After struggling to a 32-38 record with a 4.72 ERA over the first eight years of his career with the Marlins, Angels and Yankees, he had a breakout season in 2022. Heaney gets a ton of chase, getting swings on 36.9 percent of his out-of-zone pitches in 2022 with the Dodgers, which trailed only deGrom (37.5 percent) and Kevin Gausman (39.7 percent). He went 4-4 with a 3.10 ERA last year, striking out 110 and walking just 19 in 72 2/3 innings.
pitchers in the 95th percentile or better in whiff rate, chase rate & strikeout rate, 2022:
Andrew Heaney
Jacob deGrom
Andrés Muñoz
Edwin Díaz— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) December 6, 2022
Keen observers will note: That’s about 100 innings short of a full starter’s workload, which leads us to a potentially concerning situation. Here’s the Rangers rotation as it stands and the number of innings they pitched last season:
- Jacob deGrom: 64 1/3
- Martín Pérez: 196 1/3
- Jon Gray: 127 1/3
- Andrew Heaney: 72 2/3
- Jake Odorizzi: 106 1/3
It’s one thing to be convinced that one pitcher’s medicals are good enough to keep him on the mound for enough innings to justify the contract. But will the Rangers strike gold with 80 percent of their rotation?
“We have said this all along: You can’t have enough starting pitching,” Young said. “I think that we’re balancing quantity with quality. And I think that we have a lot of arms we like and we’ll continue to look for ways to add to our depth, knowing that we have some upper-level arms that at some point should provide both quality and quantity.”
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Young isn’t wrong about the depth. Dane Dunning is expected to return from hip surgery right around Opening Day. Glenn Otto was slightly above league average, worth 0.5 bWAR in 135 2/3 innings last year. Cole Ragans showed flashes of being capable. And there are a lot of young arms getting close to knocking on the door. And Spencer Howard … well, if you’re getting to the “Spencer Howard is back in the rotation” portion of the season, something has either gone horribly wrong with the health of the rotation or exceedingly great for Howard, who allowed 12 home runs in 37 2/3 innings in the big leagues last season.
Speaking of home runs, that’s been one of Heaney’s issues. His 1.73 home runs per nine innings last season was pretty much in line with his career mark of 1.6. That’s not a huge red flag, but it isn’t particularly great. In fact, among pitchers with at least 70 innings thrown last season, Heaney gave up the eighth-worst HR/9 mark. For comparison, here are the 2022 HR/9 numbers for the other four projected members of the rotation:
- Jacob deGrom: 1.3
- Jon Gray: 1.2
- Jake Odorizzi: 1.2
- Martín Pérez: 0.5
One interesting thing about Heaney’s 2022 season was his pitch selection, no doubt a byproduct of moving organizations and getting feedback from the Dodgers. Fabian Ardaya wrote about this more in-depth a couple of times in April, but the short version is this: After throwing his curveball 21 percent of the time in 2021, he threw it a tidy zero percent of the time in 2022. In its place, he added a slider — a pitch he had abandoned after 2016. He also vastly decreased his changeup usage, and his fastball usage ticked up.
The results were mostly good — Heaney posted career bests in strikeouts per nine innings (13.6), hits per nine innings (7.4), ERA (3.10), FIP (3.75) and WHIP (1.087). Further, Heaney has been a four-time nominee for the Roberto Clemente award and has been very involved in community outreaches in his big-league career. Being a good guy doesn’t count for everything in this game, but it counts for something, especially as a team is establishing an identity and on the verge of bringing up a few top pitching prospects.
But, like deGrom, Heaney’s success was limited by the amount of time he was able to spend on the mound. A shoulder strain limited him to just 15 innings between Opening Day and July 27. Part of that might have been the new slider. As he changed his delivery on the pitch, he also had to change his arm angle, and it’s possible the change in motion contributed to the shoulder pain.
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If that’s all it was, great. When he returned, his first five starts were under five innings. So were his last four. Add in the deGrom injury concerns, Gray’s multiple trips to the IL last season and Odorizzi’s combination of a lower leg injury (that cost him a month and a half of the 2022 season) and the relatively short leash he had in games (he averaged under five innings per start), and it’s fair to wonder if the improvement in rotation talent will be offset by a decrease in durability.
Another interesting note on Heaney’s arsenal: He added a changeup later in the year, a side-loaded grip that was different than the one he threw in 2014-16. This year’s version averaged 16.7 inches of horizontal break (2.2 inches more than league average), though it also came in 2.2 inches less than league average on vertical drop, at 31.6 inches.
If Heaney can incorporate that pitch with any effectiveness in 2023, adding it to his fastball and slider, it could go a long way toward ensuring that he continues the success he found in 2022. If he can do that and stay healthy? This deal could start to look extremely good for Texas, especially given the way free-agent contracts are going this month.
One final interesting note: According to a source, Heaney had as many as nine multiyear offers on the table, including a number of teams that appear poised to make the playoffs in 2023. But he took less money to come to Texas. Part of the reason? Young’s ability to effectively communicate his vision for the team’s future and sell Heaney on the idea that he would be part of that process to make the Rangers a winner again. Shortly after that conversation, the Rangers went out and signed deGrom — another indication that the plan in Arlington is to go for it.
The Rangers (probably) have their rotation set. But they’re not done. On Tuesday, Young reiterated the team’s desire to add an outfield bat and perhaps a couple of bullpen pieces. Whether that will come via free agency or trade is yet to be seen, but it’s another indication that this year’s Winter Meetings are going to continue to be significantly different than their immediate predecessors.
(Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea / USA Today)
