The Pittsburgh Pirates announced that they have claimed catcher Tyler Heineman off of waivers from the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday. To make room on the 40-man roster, catcher Andrew Knapp has been designated for assignment.
Heineman is coming up on his 31st birthday, but he has just 30 games of big league experience spread over three seasons. This year he is batting .267/.267/.400 in ten games with the Blue Jays. He also appeared briefly with the 2019 Miami Marlins and 2020 San Francisco Giants. He spent the 2021 season in Triple-A with the Philadelphia Phillies and St Louis Cardinals. For a time, he was behind Andrew Knapp on the depth chart for the Phillies.
Knapp has struggled at the plate this year, hitting .129/.229/.161 in 35 plate appearances, though he’s credited with 0.0 WAR due to his defense making up for the lack of offense.
The Pirates are basically just trading out backup catchers, though I’m sure Heineman will be seeing somewhat regular action until Roberto Perez returns. He is hitting better than Knapp, but neither player has even a decent sample size of at-bats, and Heineman picked up his last hit two weeks ago today.
