The Rangers made their first significant free agency addition of the offseason with the signing of catcher Kyle Higashioka.

They signed the thirty-two-year-old veteran to a two-year deal. How he will share time with Jonah Heim will remain to be seen, but Heim has played himself out of being the first-string catcher. 

The Rangers will be Higashioka’s third team after spending his first six seasons with the Yankees and last year with the Padres. The most games he has ever played catcher in a season is 90 in 2023. He caught 83 games for the Padres last season. So, it would appear he and Heim would split duty 50/50. 

Both Higashioka and Heim have similar career offensive numbers.  Higashioka has a lifetime .668 OPS and and 81 OPS+ compared to Heim’s lifetime .666 OPS and 86 OPS+.

Where Higashioka stands out compared to Heim are his career splits in the first and second half. He is pretty even, with a slight nod to the second half, whereas Heim falls off the side of the world offensively in the second half of every season. His second half batting average drops seventy points, his on-base percentage is nearly sixty points lower in the second half, and his OPS falls a staggering one-hundred-fifty points. Last season was no different, .242/.290/.644 to .182/.224/.527. He had an even larger drop-off during his All-Star season of 2023, going from .282/.338/.812 to .217/.283/.656.

It would appear theRangers signed Higashioka to split starts at catcher with Heim. Or, maybe Heim gets traded and the Rangers sign a cheaper backup catcher behind Higashioka.

Whatever the case, it’s good to see the Rangers do something after a relatively silent month of November. This isn’t front page headlines, but it does make the Rangers better.

Here’s how both catchers did at the plate in 2024: