The Pirates officially announced the Andrew Heaney signing today, as well as a pair of other roster moves. Right-hander Brett de Geus was designated for assignment to create 40-man roster space for Heaney, and the Bucs also released right-hander Yerry Rodriguez.
This is the fourth time de Geus has been DFA’ed since the start of August, and each of those three designations saw the righty switch teams. The Marlins claimed de Geus when the Mariners DFA’ed him in early August, the Blue Jays picked the reliever up on another waiver claim in September after Miami designated de Geus again, and Pittsburgh just picked de Geus up a little over a month ago after Toronto designated him and then traded de Geus in a cash transaction.
All of these moves come after two other DFAs earlier in de Geus’ career, as both the Rangers and Diamondbacks looked to move him through waivers back in 2021. Because Arizona’s designation was followed by an outright assignment, de Geus now has the ability to reject any future outright assignments in favor of free agency, should he pass through the waiver wire without being claimed or traded this time.
De Geus’ only big league experience came during those two DFA-laden seasons. He tossed 50 innings with Texas and Arizona in 2021, then resurfaced in the Show this year to pitch 11 1/3 combined frames for Seattle, Miami, and Toronto. De Geus has a 7.48 ERA over his 61 1/3 career innings in the majors, plus a 6.66 ERA in 50 career innings at the Triple-A level.
Despite the lack of bottom-line results, de Geus has a 52.5% grounder rate at the MLB level, and a sinking fastball that averaged 96.4 mph last season. The righty has been such a popular figure on the waiver wire during his career that it wouldn’t be surprising if yet another team elects to acquire the 27-year-old to see if its pitching development team has the magic touch in turning de Geus’ promising stuff into an arsenal capable of handling big league hitters.
Rodriguez signed a minor league deal with the Pirates in November, but he’ll make an early exit from Pittsburgh’s camp. Rodriguez is also a former Ranger and Blue Jay, and he has an 8.17 ERA over 36 1/3 innings with the two clubs since the start of the 2022 season. Control has been an issue for Rodriguez in both the majors and at Triple-A, and the strikeout potential he has showed in the minors hasn’t translated within the small sample of his MLB playing time.
