According to The New York Post’s Jon Heyman, the Pirates are in agreement with veteran catcher Austin Hedges for a 1-year, $5 million deal.
This was one of the biggest holes the Pirates still needed to fill coming into the offseason. Their top options to enter the 2023 season were Jason Delay and Tyler Heineman, who they also just re-signed, but each of them only tallied around 150 at-bats last season.
Hedges is likely to see a majority of the time behind the plate next season in what the Pirates are hoping to be a bridge for their two top prospects Endy Rodrigues and former 1st overall draft pick Henry Davis, who have a chance to get a taste of big-league ball for the first time this year.
Austin Hedges, 30, spent the past two and a half seasons with the Cleveland Guardians. He is a player that necessarily going to give you much production in the hitting department, but tends to excel in every aspect of his defensive game.
He hit .163 with 7 homeruns and 30 RBIs last season with a .489 OPS over 294 at bats, totaling a -0.4 WAR.
He does, however, rate at +75 for defensive runs saved over his career and owns a 30% caught stealing (league average is 26%) rate through 8 seasons. As recent as 2019, Statcast had him ranked as an elite-level pitch framer as well.
Hedges gets a similar deal to that of Roberto Perez from last season, who had a injury shortened season. The Pirates are hoping that Hedges can have a bigger impact on the team than Perez, her should be a huge asset for the pitching staff.
It’ll be interesting to see where else the Pirates improve this offseason as this is their fifth major league level acquisition already this offseason.