{"id":624049,"date":"2026-05-05T02:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T02:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/624049\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T02:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T02:27:07","slug":"braves-designate-jonah-heim-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/624049\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves Designate Jonah Heim For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Braves announced they\u2019ve reinstated catcher Sean Murphy<\/a> from his season-opening injured list stint. That pushed\u00a0Jonah Heim<\/a> off the team, as he has been designated for assignment to create space for Murphy on the active roster. Atlanta\u2019s 40-man count drops to 39.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an unfortunate but probably expected outcome for Heim. The switch-hitting backstop signed a $1.5MM free agent deal early in Spring Training. The Braves knew Murphy would need some time to recover from last fall\u2019s hip labrum surgery. NL Rookie of the Year Drake Baldwin<\/a> was the clear #1 option behind the dish, leaving Heim mostly as a fill-in backup until Murphy was back from injury.<\/p>\n

The Braves could have carried three catchers, but that\u2019s generally not the way teams prefer to use two of their four bench spots. They\u2019re also currently playing a little shorthanded in the outfield. Not only did they lose Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.<\/a> to the injured list yesterday, they haven\u2019t felt comfortable playing\u00a0Michael Harris II<\/a> in center field since Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Harris has been dealing with left quad discomfort that kept him out of the starting lineup on Thursday and Friday. He worked as the designated hitter on Saturday but didn\u2019t play yesterday and is out again tonight against Seattle righty Logan Gilbert<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The thinner outfield led the Braves to select\u00a0Jose Azocar<\/a> for a bench role over the weekend. They\u2019ve pushed Mauricio Dub\u00f3n<\/a> from shortstop to center field for the past few games, drawing\u00a0Jorge Mateo<\/a> into the lineup. Kyle Farmer<\/a> sticks around as the backup infielder. The moving pieces didn\u2019t leave much room for three catchers. Murphy had reached the end of his 20-day rehab window and needed to be activated tonight.<\/p>\n

Heim had a respectable showing over 12 games in an Atlanta uniform. He walked as often as he struck out while hitting .231\/.311\/.410 with one home run in 45 plate appearances. The defense was a little more concerning, as he failed to catch any of the 13 runners who attempted to steal against him. He didn\u2019t commit any passed balls but was behind the dish for six wild pitches in 103 innings.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nevertheless a decent chance another club takes a flier on Heim within the next week. He was an above-average starting catcher for the Rangers between 2022-23, earning an All-Star nod and a Gold Glove while helping Texas to a championship in 2023. Heim\u2019s production plummeted after that, but he\u2019s only making around twice the league minimum salary and would probably upgrade the backup catching spot for a few teams. The Guardians, Reds, Angels, Pirates, Phillies and Nationals are among clubs that have gotten little to no production from the position this season.<\/p>\n

The Braves have five days to line up a trade or place Heim on waivers. If they can\u2019t find a trade partner, he\u2019ll probably be released, as he has the five years of service time necessary to retain his salary while refusing a minor league assignment.<\/p>\n

Murphy will be behind the plate tonight for his season debut at T-Mobile Park. Baldwin gets a second consecutive start at DH. Murphy hit 16 homers last year but struck out at a career-high 31% clip while hitting below .200 for a second straight season. He\u2019d played through the hip discomfort for some time before undergoing surgery. The Braves will hope that procedure gets him back closer to peak level, though he showed some rust on his minor league rehab assignment after missing all of Spring Training.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Braves announced they\u2019ve reinstated catcher Sean Murphy from his season-opening injured list stint. That pushed\u00a0Jonah Heim off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[158640,51048,99],"class_list":["post-624049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-jonah-heim","tag-sean-murphy","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}