The Pirates have signed infielder/outfielder Nick Solak to a minor league deal, according to the transactions tracker on his MLB.com player profile page. The deal presumably includes an invite to big league Spring Training.
Solak, 30 next month, was a second-round pick by the Yankees back in 2016 but has rarely stayed in one organization for more than a few seasons at a time to this point in his career. The journeyman was traded from New York to Tampa in the three-team swap that brought Brandon Drury to the Bronx prior to the 2018 season, and then was flipped to the Rangers by the Rays in a deal that proved to be something of a coup for Tampa as they landed right-hander Pete Fairbanks.
While Fairbanks went on to become a dominant righty for the Rays, Solak made his big league debut for the Rangers in 2019. It was an impressive cup of coffee, and he hit .293/.393/.491 (126 wRC+) in 135 plate appearances for the club. The strong showing earned him a more regular role with Texas over the next two seasons, but Solak generally looked somewhat over-matched at the plate during that time with a lackluster .218/.350/.357 (88 wRC+) slash line in 744 combined trips to the plate. That led to Solak spending the majority of the 2022 season in the minor leagues before a season-ending foot fracture took him out of the picture for the remainder of the year.
At the start of the 2022-23 offseason, Solak was traded from the Rangers to the Reds in a cash deal. While he remained with the Reds throughout the offseason, he was designated for assignment by the club once it became apparent that he wouldn’t make their Opening Day roster. That led Solak to ride the transactional carousel all throughout the 2023 campaign. He briefly played for the Mariners, White Sox, Braves, and Tigers over this time, leaving him to be part of six MLB organizations in a single calendar year through a series of trades and waiver claims. Eventually, Solak finally cleared waivers after being designated for assignment by Detroit in August and elected free agency last winter.
Solak signed on with the Mariners on a minor league deal back in January, and while he didn’t make it onto the big league club he enjoyed a solid season at Triple-A Tacoma. In 90 games for the club, he slashed a respectable .311/.406/.446 with an impressive 15.3% strikeout rate. Even in the inflated offensive environment of the Pacific Coast League, that performance was good for a wRC+ 20% better than league average. Solak re-entered the open market earlier this offseason and has now found a new home with the Pirates, for whom he can offer some valuable positional depth capable of playing all over the diamond. For a club that sported the league’s third-weakest offense in 2024, a versatile bat like Solak that has had flashed of MLB success in the past could be an attractive bench option or non-roster depth piece headed into the 2025 campaign.
Weirdos
A+
Another cautionary tale about top prospects not panning out. Hope he finds some success in his early 30s with the Pirates.
He’ll be on his way to Asia after next year. Pittsburgh is the last stop on the Orient Express
Thought he would go to Japan or Korea now, maybe if he has another season at AAA he will go for the payday.
But good luck to him, I hope he gets a bench job with Pittsburgh.
shawshank redemption
hope is a terrible thing, it will eat you alive
Hope is all a Pirate fan has because ownership is top cheap to put a winning team on the field
But I love the picture of Nick at the top. Brings back wonderful memories of Sid Bream, rounding 3rd and coming home as Bonds 12-hops a throw to the plate
and to think that Bonds won a Gold Glove award that year is sickening
Signing all the utility retreads this year, I see. I’m guessing they’ll trade a few of their crappy MIF prospects. Alika Williams, Liover Peguero, Ji Hwan Bae.
Liover Peguero and Ji Hwan are gods. Unstoppable forces of thunder. We should trade them for Shoehei. Casuals bro…..smh.
Might be able to get a 4th string catcher for them tho
(sigh)….. prospects like this break my heart? Slightly short but Puck from Alpha Flight natal chested strength. Flashes of pop, mixed with bat to ball contact, can draw some walks and don’t strike out much? Love those guys.
David Adam….Nick Solak… Caleb Durbin??
This is not Max Kepler…
He would have been a good minor league depth for the Yanks right now? shoot…. they might need to have “bring your own glove” open tryouts by the way things are looking right now.
Legendary 2023 season.
more runs (1) than plate appearances (zero)
wonder how many times that’s happened?
edit: “designated runner” herb washington scored 29 runs without a plate appearance for the a’s in 1974
the Pirates had a player in the 1970’s that was used only as a pinch runner and got very few plate appearances
Is Matt Alexander who you’re thinking of? He scored 36 runs with only 27 plate appearances from 1978-1981.
yes that’s who I was thinking of,thanks
I pitched a no-hitter and lost on purpose once on the Show (errors)
why
Lost the game not the no-hitter
Cool oxymoron stat NH+L
but why on purpose
Because it’s a rare achievement
when i read his name i hear the aflac duck
I do not recall Brandon Drury ever playing for the Yankees.
Mine as well sign the overrated hofer parker to play
I wasn’t a fan of Parker as a player or individual
I thought he was a ‘good’ player
But given what has qualified for enshrinement over the years, your comment is laughable.
You seem to be obsessed
Maybe you can go out and get some fresh air today
your disapproval of Parker’s enshrinement is well documented since you post a comment about it every day.
You need to get a life outside your momma’s basement
great pick up on a MiLB deal. In his first full season he posted a 1fWAR which yeah not great but better than a negative. On a minors deal with a more than acceptable minors track record pretty great.
He may not be a MLB regular but should he stick with the system he will likely will help push to a AAA playoff run 🙂
Hopefully he doesn’t see the field in more than an injury call-up situation
he’s probably our outfielder for next season
Tightwad Nutting won’t allow Ben to increase payroll to $85 million
As it stands today, we will have the lowest payroll in baseball next year
Yeah, Joe should have prefaced his post with, “It’s a great pick up for a talented team that just needs some depth….”
There is nothing good about what. Cherington has done this off season. I can’t remember a worse one, really
Right now I still have RF as a platoon/some combination of Davis/Suwinski/Palacios
This Solak signing changes nothing
I can go back to the late 60’s for this one….
Yes, it’s only December, but I cannot remember a worse off season in Pirates history. Never.
I’m at a loss as to who can possibly have optimism for 2025.
To be fair they’re not going to sign any of the top guys , and Pirates aren’t going to be anyone’s first choice
Most realistic targets Max Kepler, Jesse Winker, maybe Eloy Jiminez are all still available.
Likewise on the closers market is lush with options from Kyle Finnegan, Tanner Scott and Jeff Hoffman to veterans like Kirby Yates, David Robertson and Andrew Kittredge to name a few.
I still like a lot of the guys available, so will stay optimistic as some of these prices come down.
First off, you can stow the extremes. Most fans have no illusions about top guys.
The problem is two fold. One, they won’t even go for mid tier players. Two, they’ll easily throw in guys like Ortiz for what will amount to empty uniforms, like Horwitz
You name a bunch of guys who won’t move the needle overall. Bring in any of these names and you still have something of a 70-72 win team. Nothing more
I give you credit. You still have optimism for this miserable franchise and ultra miserly, greed obsessed owner Bob Nutting
He’s the worst owner in all of MLB, perhaps all of sports
I don’t think Ortiz has any significant ceiling so I dont care that we traded him, and I’m very happy that trade brought them a really high ceiling 1B.
agreed that RF will likely see $0 added to it, but in the under 10Mil bin there are a few guys in this market who could help out a lot for a reasonable deal. The 2 LHB’s especially, but also Eloy seems like a Ben C signing too
But I do think they’ll sign a good RP in this market by default of a guy willing to take a little less to be a closer. Ideally Kittredge