Article: Tyler Heineman Is On His Way To Making Backup Catcher History

[Leo Morgenstern]

When the Blue Jays designated catcher Ali Sánchez for assignment yesterday, it was a bad day for Sánchez but great news for the fanbase. One might have expected the Jays to DFA Sánchez two days earlier, when their All-Star backstop Alejandro Kirk returned from the injured list. However, the club was concerned about backup Tyler Heineman, who took a foul tip off the mask on Saturday and had to be evaluated for concussion symptoms. Fans held their breath as the Blue Jays kept all three of Kirk, Heineman, and Sánchez on the active roster for more than 48 hours; the longer Sánchez stuck around, the more it seemed like something must be wrong with Heineman. 

So, with no disrespect toward Sánchez, Blue Jays fans let out a collective sigh of relief on Tuesday afternoon when the team tweeted out the words "ROSTER MOVES" in all caps, followed by "C Ali Sánchez designated for assignment."

Heineman's surprising success is a big reason why the Blue Jays find themselves sitting atop the AL East 115 games into the year. He's been nothing short of exceptional.

After slashing .212/.298/.273 (65 wRC+) in 112 games over his first five big league seasons, the 34-year-old has a .330/.397/.500 slash line (151 wRC+) across 45 games in 2025. Despite his limited playing time, he also ranks among the league's top 10 catchers in Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and Fielding Run Value (FRV).

Of course, the Blue Jays already knew Heineman was a great defender. His glove is the reason they've acquired him three separate times and given him MLB playing time in each of the past four seasons. His offensive production, on the other hand, has been a delightful surprise. By the calculations at FanGraphs, he has been Toronto's fifth-most productive offensive player, behind only George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and Addison Barger. 

Heineman doesn't just stand out among his teammates. His 2.2 FanGraphs WAR ranks him just outside of the top 10 among all primary catchers. In other words, as far as fWAR is concerned, 20 teams – that's two-thirds of the league – have received less from their starting catcher than the Blue Jays have gotten out of their backup. Indeed, 20 teams have received less production from all their catchers combined than the Blue Jays have been gifted by Heineman alone. 

Is Heineman likely to keep this up? No. Everything we know about small samples, past performance, and the aging curve tells us otherwise. He's outhitting his expected wOBA by 100 points, and his .395 BABIP is wholly unsustainable. Still, his phenomenal season has gone on long enough that we simply cannot continue to write it off as a quirky statistical oddity. It's time to start talking about the fact that Heineman is enjoying one of the best seasons by a backup catcher that many of us have ever seen. 

Here's a fun way to contextualize how well Heineman has played. With 2.2 fWAR in 45 games, he's playing at a 7.8-fWAR full-season pace. In the last decade, only 19 position players have produced at least 7.8 WAR in a single season. Nine of them won an MVP (including Josh Donaldson in 2015), while another six finished as the runner-up. All 19 earned MVP votes. 

Needless to say, Heineman isn't going to play 162 games this season. Not only is that impossible (he's already sat out 70 games), but no primary catcher has ever played 162 games in a season. But that's not the point. The reason I'm writing about Heineman is that he's a backup. At his current pace, he'll finish the season with 63 games played and 175 trips to the plate. 

Entering play on August 6, Heineman's 2.2 fWAR this year ranks 11th all-time among catchers with fewer than 200 PA in a season. And he still has almost 30% of the schedule left to play! The table below lists (almost) every catcher who has finished a season with more than 2.0 fWAR in fewer than 200 PA. In an effort to limit the results to true backups, I only included players from the NL and AL, and I excluded shortened seasons. Otherwise, Josh Gibson would dominate the rankings, and Salvador Perez's strong 2020 campaign would also sneak onto the list. 

Heineman is featured twice. The row highlighted in yellow shows his current 2025 numbers, while the row highlighted in green shows what those numbers will look like at the end of the year if he keeps up this pace:

Catcher	Season	Team	G	PA	WAR
Tyler Heineman	2025	TOR	63	175	3.2
José Molina	2010	TOR	57	183	3.1
David Ross	2009	ATL	54	151	3.1
Jay Clarke	1906	CLE	57	195	2.8
David Ross	2012	ATL	62	196	2.7
Chris Stewart	2011	SFG	67	183	2.6
José Molina	2011	TOR	55	191	2.4
Jack Lapp	1911	PHA	68	196	2.4
David Ross	2008	CIN/BOS	60	182	2.4
David Ross	2011	ATL	52	171	2.2
David Ross	2010	ATL	59	145	2.2
Tyler Heineman	2025	TOR	44	123	2.2
Gene Tenace	1982	STL	66	165	2.1
Erik Kratz	2012	PHI	50	157	2.1

Data via FanGraphs. AL and NL only. Partial seasons excluded.

You might notice that 10 of the 13 seasons on that list came after 2008. That's because catcher fWAR did not take pitch framing into account until the 2008 campaign. So, perhaps it's only fair to compare Heineman's season to those from the past 18 years. Even so, it's impressive that he's already the first catcher since 2012 to surpass 2.0 fWAR in a season with fewer than 200 PA, and it's beyond impressive that he's on pace to unseat José Molina at the top of the list.

(On a side note, it's fun to remember how successful Molina was in his two-year stint with Toronto as a backup to John Buck and J.P. Arencibia. In both seasons, one could argue he was far more successful than the starter he was backing up. Anyway, back to Heineman.)

Switching over to look at Baseball Reference WAR, Heineman currently ranks 15th all-time among catchers with fewer than 200 PA in a season:

Catcher	Season	Team	G	PA	WAR
Jay Clarke	1906	CLE	57	199	3.2
Tyler Heineman	2025	TOR	44	123	2.4
Gene Tenace	1982	STL	66	165	2.2
Carlos Santana	2010	CLE	46	192	2.0
David Ross	2009	ATL	54	151	2.0
Bill Salkeld	1946	PIT	69	200	2.0
Eddie Pérez	1998	ATL	61	167	1.9
Rick Dempsey	1988	LAD	77	198	1.9
Jake Gibbs	1970	NYY	49	163	1.9
Frank Fernández	1968	NYY	51	171	1.9
Alva Williams	1912	WSH	60	172	1.9
Mike Zunino	2016	SEA	55	192	1.8
Ron Karkovice	1991	CHW	75	193	1.8
Gene Tenace	1970	OAK	38	128	1.8
Jack Lapp	1911	PHA	68	199	1.8
Tyler Heineman	2025	TOR	44	123	1.7

Data via Stathead Baseball. AL and NL only. Partial seasons excluded.

On FanGraphs, I simply selected "catcher" from the "primary position" drop-down menu on their website. I had to be a little more specific on Baseball Reference. For the list above, I defined a "catcher" as anyone who played at least 75% of his games behind the plate that season. If I set the minimum at 90% instead, Heineman would move up to 12th place. 

Baseball Reference WAR has never included framing, so it's better for comparing catchers of all eras. At the same time, it fails to capture one of the most important aspects of Heineman's game. Nevertheless, if he keeps up his current pace, he'll move up to second place on the list above by the end of the season.

The backup catcher history books don't get checked out of the library all that often. After all, it's rather oxymoronic to talk about the best backups at any position. Yet, what Tyler Heineman is doing for the Blue Jays this year is truly unusual. He's demanding our attention from a role that's often entirely overlooked. 

Stats updated prior to games on August 6.

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[John_Havok]

I think you might have left some of your point form notes in that finished article... 

Good read though. 

[Leo Morgenstern]

5 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

I think you might have left some of your point form notes in that finished article... 

Good read though. 

Huh, not sure what happened there. The article wasn't scheduled to publish until just now. Thanks for the kind words, and there shouldn't be any more point-form notes in there!

[Spanky__99]

Heiny and the platoons have been exceptional.