The Pirates made a move just before tonight’s game in Philadelphia, selecting second baseman/corner outfielder Nick Solak onto the big league club. Pittsburgh optioned Ji Hwan Bae to Triple-A Indianapolis to create an active roster spot, while recently-claimed utilityman Michael Helman was designated for assignment in the 40-man roster move.
Solak, 30, is back in the big leagues for the first time since 2023. The right-handed hitter only made two appearances that year, one apiece with the Braves and Tigers. He’d appeared in 35 games for Texas the year prior. His most recent regular MLB action came with the 2021 Rangers, when he suited up in 127 games and batted .242/.314/.362 with 11 home runs.
A former second-round pick by the Yankees, Solak has bounced around to various organizations over the past few seasons. He was viewed as a bat-first prospect without a clear defensive home. He hasn’t hit enough to make that work at the major league level, running a modest .252/.327/.372 slash line in nearly 1000 career plate appearances. Solak has reliably hit minor league pitching, including a .291/.379/.472 mark over parts of six Triple-A seasons.
This year is no exception. Solak is out to a massive .393/.452/.625 start through 32 games with Indianapolis. He leads the International League in average and ranks among the top four hitters (minimum 100 plate appearances) in both on-base percentage and slugging. He has connected on six homers and doubles apiece, plus one triple. He’s drawing walks at a decent 9.5% rate and has kept his strikeouts to a tidy 13.5% clip.
The Bucs are hoping he can carry a fraction of that production over against big league pitching. They’ve again had one of the sport’s weakest offenses. Solak draws into the lineup tonight at first base against Phils southpaw Ranger Suárez. The Pirates will activate lefty-hitting Spencer Horwitz either tomorrow or Sunday. Horwitz is going to be the primary first baseman, especially against righty pitching. Solak could see more playing time in left field, where neither Tommy Pham nor Alexander Canario has been effective. He’s out of options, so the Pirates could not send him back down to the minors without running him through waivers.
The move almost immediately costs Helman his roster spot. Pittsburgh had grabbed him off waivers from the Cardinals on Wednesday; he has yet to make an appearance in the organization. The 28-year-old Helman debuted with nine games for the Twins late last season. He was traded to St. Louis shortly before the start of Spring Training. Helman is out to an awful .185/.260/.292 start in Triple-A this year, but he hit .271/.350/.487 with 14 homers in 72 games at that level a year ago. Pittsburgh will likely place him back on waivers in the next few days.
@smokeymeats45 first reported that Solak was being called up.
Will make Pirates fans happy. They wanted Lamb last year. Gorski. Nunez. Martin. Anyone who does anything in minors they get excited about.
Not much to get excited about in the majors
Really? You think Pirates fans are going to get excited over a 30 year old infielder who hasn’t seen the majors since 2023?
Obviously don’t pay attention to Pirates fans
I seen them all over the internet asking why Solak isn’t here. So yes I do know them.
No sir, you do not.
Yes I do. Twitter. Pirates sites. Podcast. People been pounding the table for Solak.
Jared Trilo flew through the minors and had a .900+ OPS at AAA. So far he hasn’t been able to figure out major league pitchers
And they were excited about him
Why are they just leaving Oneil Cruz on the bench for 5 + games. IL him….
I agree, Monday will be 10 games if Cruz doesn’t play by then
They could have put him on the IL and brought someone else up from Indy
A team starving for offense and they deliberately leave a player off the roster who can contribute
Nutting and Cherington don’t want to start the service time clock on the young guys. That’s the only explanation I can come up with…
Terrible move. And now that it’s past 3 days they can no longer backdate.
Are they benching Canario Cruz Reynolds? Giving Pham extension? Why is Pham still here other than Cherington unwilling to admit he threw away 4m?
Reynolds isn’t playing tonight, but your buddy, Pham is
Doing the old rest day don’t touch a bat get your head right magically come out of a slump thing. It works sometimes. I’m sure Bae Gorski Solak could have handled things for a few games. Is anyone really that worse than Pham? Pham is better than his stats but still below average.
I read that Reynolds’ shoulder has been bothering him which could be effecting his swing
He’s mired with a 4 for 41 slump and probably needs rest
Solak is playing good at AAA
If he can hit .252 in the majors this time around he will be batting cleanup by end of the month
Hell yeah, glad smokeymeats45 is getting his big break.
George Carlin used the following phrase to describe American elections, but it also holds true with Pirates positional player transactions: “Garbage in, garbage out”
Sir, the White Sox and Rockies would like to be included as well please!
“where neither Tommy Pham nor Alexander Canario has been effective.”
Might as well have a tattoo on your head that says I know absolutely nothing about baseball.
Brighteyes writing articles now?
Canario has been hitting the ball better than the vast majority of hitters in baseball all year long.
“Solak could see more playing time in left field, where neither Tommy Pham nor Alexander Canario has been effective.”
I promise you they won’t be benching Canario for Solak.
Canario’s 3 run homer last night is evidence that he’s hitting the ball better than Pham
Then again so is just about everyone on this roster currently
Tons of evidence. Just about every stat and data there is.
Pham should have never been signed at least not for 4m and should have never played over a red hot Canario. Canario is the one that should had the over 100 at bats in April.
the entire Pirate baseball world knows that Pham shouldn’t have been signed but he was and unless Ben grows a pair and dfas him we’re stuck with him
Nothing exciting about the recent moves. It’s like using duct tape to fix a sinking canoe. Cherrington is fighting for his job. He’s trying to pull other teams scubs out of a hat like his buddy Shelton did with his lineups.
To be honest,I’d rather have Huntington. At least he knew how to put together a bullpen. And now they bring a 78 year old ex pirate manager to be a coach. Absolutely amazing how dysfunctional the organization is. And Kelly is just another Shelton.
Take all the War and other idiotic analytics and shove them.
Kelly doesn’t manage like Shelton did but he has to use the players he’s given
The fact that they have failed to score more than 4 runs a game for 22 consecutive games says more about the hitting coach and his staff than the players
Everyone swings uip on the pitches instead of swinging with the pitch
Or hitting the ball in the opposite direction, they try and pull a pitch when it’s outside of the plate
If they even had a basic understanding of analytics they wouldn’t have signed Pham and wouldn’t have played him over Canario. Organization isn’t good at anything other than losing.
Nick Yorke be damned.
Fans have given up and are saving their money for Steelers season
What amazes me is that last year’s Pirates hitting looks like a juggernaut compared to this bunch.
Maybe Andy Haines wasn’t so bad after all!
Seriously though I think that it will be difficult to get any good former GM to come to Pittsburgh to work for Nutting.