A look at Heineman’s 2025 season.
The Blue Jays picked up Tyler Heineman off waivers from the Red Sox in September of 2024, and he got into five games with the Jays, after playing two with the Red Sox. Before that, he played parts of four seasons with three different teams. He had 10 games with the Jays in 2022. He’d always been a good glove/poor bat catcher.
I often joke about the backup catcher union card, once you get it you can stay in the league for years, but there is a lot of value in having a guy who can call a good game, block balls and throw out the odd base stealer. If they get the occasional hit, so much the better. A mistake at catcher can cost you a game.
Coming into last season, Heineman had played 111 games, 299 PA, with a .212/.298/.273 batting line, with 1 career. When you see a line like that, you automatically think ‘He’s good defensively’.
This year?
| Age | WAR | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | OPS+ | TB | GIDP | HBP | SH | SF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34 | 1.9 | 61 | 174 | 149 | 25 | 43 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 20 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 31 | .289 | .361 | .416 | .777 | 114 | 62 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 2 |
Before 2025, he had one home run, this year he had three.
Baseball Reference had him at a 1.9 WAR. FanGraphs had him at a 2.1, giving him a value of $16.2 million to the Jays.
Tyler had a .341 wOBA (career, including last year, .292) and a 120 wRC+ (career 85).
His BABIP was .342 (career .292).
Heineman’s walk rate was 6.9% (career 7.4), and his strikeout rate was 17.8% (down from 15.2).
His line drive rate was 16.5% (20.6 career). The ground ball rate was 37.4 (34.3 career). And fly ball rate was 46.1% (career 45.2). 5.7% of his fly balls left the park (career 2.8).
Soft contact was 22.4% (23.9). Hard contact was 16.0% (career 16.8).
Heineman hit left-handers (.395/.449/.558) much much better than right-handers (.245/.325/.358). But then it was a small sample size, just 50 PA vs LHP.
He hit much better at home (.313/.370/.500) than on the road (.271/.354/.353).
And, as you will remember, Tyler his much better in the first half (.329/.380/.463) than the second half (.239/.338/.358).
Heineman by month:
- April: .448/.467/.655 with 1 home run, 1 walk and 5 strikeouts in 10 games, 8 starts.
- May: ..316/.333/.368 with 0 home runs, 1 walk and 5 strikeouts in 9 games, 5 starts.
- June: .292/.379/.458 with 1 home run, 2 walks and 4 strikeouts in 10 games, 8 starts.
- July: .300/.417/.533 with 1 home run, 4 walks and 8 strikeouts in 12 games, 9 starts.
- August: .192/.323/.231 with 0 home runs, 4 walks and 5 strikeouts in 11 games, 9 starts.
- September: .143/.182/.143 with 0 home runs, 0 walks and 4 strikeouts in 9 games, 7 starts.
With RISP he hit .324/.386/.432.
In high-leverage spots: .370/.500/.407 with 0 home runs.
Low leverage: ..215/.278/.354 with 1 home run.
On defense:
He caught 424.2 innings. Made 8 errors for a .983 FA (league average .993). He had 0 passed balls and 11 wild pitches. His caught-stealing percentage was 30.2 (league average: 21.5).
Baseball Savant has him in the 84th percentile for framing.
The Blue Jays pitchers had a 3.54 ERA with Tyler behind the plate. They had a 4.34 ERA with Kirk behind the plate.
As a baserunner, FanGraphs has him at a 0.9 runs above average. He stole two bases without being caught. He goes into 9 games as a pinch runner.
Where he hit in games he started:
- 7th: 1 game. .000/.000/.000.
- 8th: 28 games. .321/.402/.440.
- 9th: 17 games. .275/.333/.451.
The Jays were 27-19 in games he started.
His longest hitting streak was 5 games, longest on base was 11 games. Most games with a hit was 6 games. Longest without a home run was 24 games.
And he pitched in three games with a 32.40 ERA (most of the runs against were in one game, 10 earned in 1.1 innings).
In the playoffs:
| Season | Series | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | ALCS | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 2025 | WS | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
Baseball Savant shows him to be terrific defensively. He was 88th percentile in blocks above average. 81th percentile in caught stealing above average. And 86th percentile in pop time.
I took a look, and I couldn’t find any other player in baseball this year who had an fWAR above two with less than 200 PA.
We really couldn’t have asked for more from Tyler (well, maybe better pitching). He was amazing defensively and hit far better than we could have expected.
Can we expect him to be this good again?
Defensively, sure, why not? That pitchers had a better ERA with him could be statistical noise, just random luck. But pitchers seemed to like pitching to him. He called a good game. There was nothing defensively to complain about.
Before last year, he had a 1.4 fWAR in 111 games. Not as good as last year but still pretty good in that small a sample.
If I ran another team, I’d try to trade for him.
Category: General Sports
