The Miami Marlins have brought up highly touted top prospect Andrew Heaney and he will make his debut on Thursday.
Heaney has been a name thrown around since the start of spring training as a guy the Marlins could turn to at some point. While the team has not confirmed or denied the timing, it is likely that they waited until this point so that Heaney would not be "Super-Two" eligible.
"Super-Two" status refers to the arbitration process and means a player receives an extra year of arbitration as opposed to the minimum salary. This takes effect in the third year of a player's career if he has ample service time. It can potentially cost a team millions of dollars more when dealing with a talented arm like Heaney.
The delay in promoting Heaney is reminiscent of how the Marlins handled the promotion of Giancarlo Stanton. That also was likely to avoid him hitting arbitration for an extra season.
Stanton who was arbitration eligible for the first time this year took home $6.5 million but earned only $537,000 in 2013 per Baseball-Reference.com since the Marlins originally waited to promote him.
Heaney pitched for AA Jacksonville and AAA New Orleans this season and compiled terrific stats on both levels. The left-hander was a combined 7-2 with a 2.47 E.R.A and struck out 79 in 76.2 innings pitched.
Thus far in AAA, he was 3-0 and had struck out 27 while only waking two per MiLB.com.
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The hope for Miami is that Heaney can take over at the front of the rotation and be a suitable replacement for Jose Fernandez the rest of the way.
It would also allow Heaney to earn valuable experience so that he can be part of a formidable 1-2 punch when Fernandez returns in 2015.
The Marlins also added Anthony DeSclafani, Justin Bour and Jake Marisnick to the team on Monday. Christian Yelich was placed on the 15-day DL while Donovan Solano was optioned to AAA. Randy Wolf and Kevin Slowey were designated for assignment.
