Dodgers free agents, Part III: Assessing Andrew Heaney’s new lease on life

Editor’s note: This is the Wednesday, Nov. 10 edition of the Inside the Dodgers newsletter from reporter J.P. Hoornstra. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

In December 2014, Andrew Heaney thanked the Dodgers for his memories with “such a storied franchise.” He had been a Dodger for all but a few minutes before a trade sent him to the Angels in exchange for second baseman Howie Kendrick. Almost seven years after trading him, the Dodgers re-signed Heaney to a one-year, $8.5 million contract last November. Will the pitcher again be thanking the Dodgers for the memories, or return on yet another rebound contract ― this time, trying to rebound from an injury-plagued 2022 season?

Heaney made 14 starts in the regular season. When healthy, he was alternately brilliant and ineffective. There was enough good to see why the Dodgers signed him in the first place. His stats (a 3.10 ERA and 110 strikeouts in 72 ⅔ regular-season innings) were fine on the surface. But his health and performance raised enough question marks to give any team pause about penciling Heaney into their 2023 rotation.

Let’s dive into the breakdown.

Why Heaney will return

After being designated for assignment by the Yankees late in the 2021 season, Heaney’s career appeared to have reached its nadir. He was 30 years old, his low-90s two-seamer was not fooling anyone, and he’d pitched his way out of two starting rotations in one season, in Anaheim and New York. When the Dodgers called to offer Heaney a rotation spot coming off a 106-win season, it felt like a larger reclamation project than usual.

Health issues aside, the project worked. In spring training, Heaney ditched the “sweeper” slider he learned in New York. He abandoned the curveball he had thrown the previous five seasons. He rarely faced an opposing hitter three times in the same game.

As a sinker-slider pitcher with an occasional changeup mixed in, Heaney was incredibly effective. Shoulder injuries limited the left-hander to 10 starts before Sept. 1, but he had a 2.12 ERA and 70 strikeouts in 46 2/3 innings in those games. He would only pitch into the sixth inning four times, but the Dodgers’ bullpen was good enough to make Heaney’s relative lack of durability a non-factor. He was a good fit on a deep staff.

September was a different story ― we’ll get to that in a bit ― but the Dodgers apparently found a template for Heaney to be the best version of himself in his 30s. In yesterday’s piece about another over-30 lefty starter, Clayton Kershaw, I cautioned against reading too much into the usual analysis about dollars per WAR and projections. Kershaw’s relationship to the Dodgers organization is special, if not unique in today’s game. The same cannot be said about Heaney, who fell short of every innings-based incentive that would have pushed his salary up to $9.5 million.

It’s not hard to envision the Dodgers drafting another incentive-heavy contract for Heaney to potentially make more money if he stays healthy next year. To the extent the Connor McGuiness/Mark Prior laboratory deserves credit for cooking up a formula for Heaney’s success ― a large extent, I imagine ― Heaney might have trouble replicating his 2022 results elsewhere. Throw in the free-agent status of Kershaw and Tyler Anderson, and the Dodgers could use a lefty to join Julio Urías, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May in their 2023 rotation. Heaney might not make 30 starts next year but if he does, I’d bet on the Dodgers getting the most out of them.

Why Heaney won’t return

This will be Heaney’s second trip through free agency. His first go-around might have paid more handsomely than expected, but this off-season has a chance to be even more lucrative. That’s because every other team has the basic template for Heaney’s overhaul too: Emphasize the sinker and slider, limit his exposure to batters three times through the order, and help keep his mechanics where they were in Los Angeles. There’s more to it than that, of course, but it isn’t hard to see a small- or medium-market team open the purse strings on the premise that Heaney can replicate his 2022 success over a longer haul in 2023.

We’ve seen this happen before. Think Hyun-Jin Ryu in Toronto, or Alex Wood in San Francisco: a team on the way up (or, at least, a front office that thinks its team is on the way up) tries to catch a free agent pitcher on his way up, too. The Dodgers are already up. They are expected to make room for prospects Ryan Pepiot and Bobby Miller in their rotation at some point next season. There’s room for another veteran starter to join that group, but two or three? If Kershaw and Anderson re-sign, that could handicap Heaney’s ability to stay in the Dodgers’ rotation all season if he’s healthy.

It doesn’t have to be Kershaw or Anderson; you get the picture. A team looking to capitalize on Heaney’s new career trajectory might offer more of an opportunity ― in terms of starts and innings, if not money as well ― than the Dodgers. Heaney was by all accounts flexible with any role assigned to him in 2022, but it’s worth noting that he was the team’s fourth starter to begin the season. The Dodgers gave him a chance to stick in the rotation. After a recurring shoulder injury and a rash of home runs allowed, Heaney was pitching in relief.

Heaney averaged 4 ⅓ innings over his final six appearances of the regular season, posting a 4.85 ERA. The Dodgers used him out of the bullpen for his final two regular-season appearances and again in the National League Division Series against the Padres. The Dodgers’ front office might look at Heaney’s 2022 season as capturing lightning in a bottle, a risk not to be taken twice. A team with limited resources might view Heaney a potential top-of-the-rotation starter if he’s healthy, and at worst a veteran with postseason experience who can be a positive influence on a young staff. If they re-sign Kershaw, the Dodgers will have checked both of these boxes already.

I don’t know what any team’s actual 2023 projections for Andrew Heaney hold, but I imagine the range of projected outcomes is relatively large. Whichever team has the most faith in Heaney to perform closer to the 90th percentile than the 10th will probably sign him. It’ll be interesting to see which team that is.

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