Former Yankees Pitcher Announces Retirement from Baseball

Time with the Yankees

When the Yankees acquired Heaney at the busy 2021 deadline for Janson Junk and Elvis Peguero, they were presumably hoping to unlock something that the Los Angeles Angels could not. Though his 6-7 record with a 5.27 ERA looked unsightly, he struck out 113 batters in 94 innings.

That did not turn out to be the case. In Heaney's first three starts, he logged 15 innings. He allowed 15 earned runs and gave up eight home runs. Those strikeouts were there, however. He struck out 18 during that span.

Heaney did have one stellar start against the Boston Red Sox. It was an important one as far as Wild Card implications go, and, after giving up a home run in the first, Heaney immediately settled down. He pitched seven innings, and Boston did not score the rest of the way.

It would be the Dodgers who got the best version of Heaney after his time with the Yankees. In an injury-shortened season, he pitched to a 3.10 ERA in 72.2 innings. The following season, he joined a Texas Rangers team that was home to misfit Yankees. He and former teammates Jordan Montgomery and Aroldis Chapman took home World Series rings that season.

Potential Shift in Philosophies Post-Heaney

Heaney's starts turned out to be a death knell for the hopes and dreams of playing the Wild Card game at home in 2021. Boston edged New York in the standings, and those disastrous Heaney outings proved to be the difference.

That was less on him and more on the organization for choosing to go with the veteran instead of just relying on a young pitcher by the name of Luis Gil, who also had a stellar start in the same Boston series as Heaney. The Yankees would frequently send Gil down and rely on the veteran southpaw despite his struggles. They held on much longer than they needed to when Gil was right there for them.

For all of the Yankees' issues and their playoff failures during the Aaron Judge era, they have since relied more on their young arms. This season, Cam Schlittler played the role of a de facto ace that the young Gil may have been able to do that year.

Those Wild Card standings could have gone in the other direction, had Gil pitched. The Yankees could have played at Yankee Stadium, and both Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge would have been able to continue their hot streaks in the Bronx, instead of being on the road at Fenway, where Boston's lineup bombarded an injured Gerrit Cole.

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