Blue Jays back up catcher officially joins the millionaires club, avoids arbitration

One of the keys to the success of the Toronto Blue Jays in 2025 was the fact that their catching tandem was incredibly solid. Between Alejandro Kirk's 2.3 bWAR and Tyler Heineman's 1.9 bWAR the Blue Jays had one of the better catching duos in the league.

With Kirk signed to a long term extension, there was no doubt he would be returning to the Blue Jays in 2026. Heineman, on the other hand, has been a career journeyman, bouncing around the league from team to team, never spending more than one full season in any single location. But that's all about to change as Heineman and the Blue Jays came to an agreement on a contract for 2026, avoiding arbitration.

Blue Jays back up catcher officially joins the millionaires club, avoids arbitration

Blue Jays beat reporter Ben Nicholson-Smith wrote on X (formerly Twitter), "Blue Jays have avoided arbitration with Tyler Heineman per industry source. He'll earn $1,237,500 in 2026." For Heineman it's the largest salary he's earned thus far in his career that has taken him through eleven different organizations since he was drafted by the Houston Astros in June of 2012.

Heineman spent five season's in the Astros organization after being selected in the eighth round. From there he had stints in Milwaukee, Arizona, Miami, San Francisco, St. Lous, Philadelphia, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Toronto again, New York (Mets), Boston, and Toronto...again! He didn't reach the majors with all of the teams, in fact in the 13 years since being drafted and playing pro-ball, Heineman has spent just six of those years at the MLB level.

In those six seasons, Heineman has appeared in 172 games and owns a .240/.321/.325 slash line with a .646 OPS. 2025 was easily his best season as he got into 61 games and hit .289/.361/.416 with a .777 OPS. He had a wRC+ of 120 and was worth 10 defensive runs saved behind the plate in 424.2 innings.

It's the first time in his career that he has signed a six-figure contract and any Blue Jays fan will tell you, he's worth all that and more for what he brought to the club. The statistics only tell some of the story as Heineman came up in some clutch moments for Toronto throughout the season and in the early part of the year was one of the Blue Jays most reliable hitters, in fact he was still batting .406 on June 18.

It's great to see Heineman's hard work rewarded with a salary bump and it's even more exciting to know that the tandem of Kirk and Heineman will return in Toronto for the 2026 season.