Pirates Promote Nick Yorke

3:30pm: The Bucs have made it official, announcing that Yorke has been selected to the roster with Williams optioned in a corresponding move.

3:10pm: The Pirates are promoting infield prospect Nick Yorke, according to Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on X. Yorke is not yet on the club’s 40-man roster, but the Bucs already have a vacancy there, so they will only need to make a corresponding active roster move.

Yorke, 22, hasn’t been in Pittsburgh’s system for very long. He was drafted by the Red Sox in 2020, going 17th overall, but came to the Bucs via a rare one-for-one swap of young and controllable players. The Pirates sent right-hander Quinn Priester to Boston straight up for Yorke in a July trade.

The road to the big leagues has been a bit up-and-down for Yorke. It started with a bang in 2021, as he performed well in 97 games between Single-A and High-A. He hit 14 home runs and stole 13 bases in that time. He drew walks at an 11.8% clip while limiting his strikeouts to a low rate of 15.6%. His combined line of .325/.412/.516 led to a wRC+ of 149.

There were questions about his defense but that offensive performance vaulted him onto top prospect lists. Going into 2022, Baseball America ranked him #31 in the league, though a downturn in Yorke’s performance would follow. He was returned to High-A and only got into 80 games, battling injuries such as turf toe as well as back and wrist soreness. When on the field, his results were noticeably worse. His walk rate fell to 8.8%, his strikeout rate jumped to 25.2% and he slashed .231/.303/.365 for a wRC+ of 84.

He fell off top 100 lists after that season and hasn’t quite been able to get back, despite some improved results in subsequent seasons. He was promoted to Double-A last year and played in 110 games, slashing .268/.350/.435 for a 116 wRC+. His strikeout rate stayed a bit high at 24.1% but he drew walks 10.1% of the time, hit 13 homers and stole 18 bases.

Here in 2024, Yorke has been having another good year. He started out back at Double-A and was decent, slashing .251/.325/.366 for a 101 wRC+ in 45 games. The Sox then promoted him to Triple-A, when he got into a good groove, slashing .310/.408/.490 in 38 games for a 138 wRC+.

It was then that he was flipped to the Bucs, perhaps due to a change in the front office. Yorke was drafted during the tenure of chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, who had been fired and replaced by Craig Breslow. Perhaps Breslow wasn’t as enamored of Yorke as his predecessor and considered him expendable, though that’s entirely speculative.

Either way, Yorke has kept hitting with his new club. In 40 Triple-A games since the deal, he has hit .355/.431/.507 for a wRC+ of 147. The deal doesn’t look great for the Sox so far, as Priester has a 5.67 ERA in eight Triple-A starts since being swapped, though that’s a very small sample size with plenty of time for the narrative to flip. Yorke had a .364 batting average on balls in play at the Triple-A level prior to being traded and a .441 BABIP since, so it wouldn’t be fair to expect him to continue hitting quite this well in the majors.

Nonetheless, it’s possible that Yorke could be a key contributor for the Bucs. He has played some third base, shortstop and outfield, but his primary position is second base, which has been a revolving door for the Pirates lately. The Bucs have used Nick Gonzales, Jared Triolo, Alika Williams and Isiah Kiner-Falefa at the keystone this year, with none of them locking down the position.

Kiner-Falefa has been playing shortstop lately with Oneil Cruz moved to center field, while Triolo has been covering third base for the injured Ke’Bryan Hayes. Gonzales has been the regular at second base recently but he has a .267/.305/.377 batting line this year for a 91 wRC+ while getting mixed reviews for his defense.

The Pirates are 71-78 and out of contention, so they will use the final two weeks of the regular season to get a look at Yorke and see how he fares against big league pitching. Going into the winter, they will have to decide how they feel about their infield mix. Second base would be one of the clearest areas to upgrade in the offseason but Yorke could perhaps change their thinking if he seems like an immediate solution. Triolo has also been playing better of late, with a .237/.356/.404 line and 115 wRC+ in the second half.

Each of these infielders can play multiple positions, so that can give the Bucs some creativity in movings things around for the remainder of the season and in the future. For now, Yorke can make his major league debut and get a taste of the big leagues before the winter comes.