Pittsburgh Pirates Draft: Recapping Final 3 Day Two Picks

On Day Two of the 2022 MLB Draft, the Pirates finished off the day with picks 230, 260, and 290 in the 8th- 10th rounds on Tuesday afternoon. 

At pick 230 the Pirates took the lefty, Cy Nielson, out of BYU, who was previously drafted in the 40th round back in 2019 by the Cleavland Guardians. Back in 2019 he was drafted as a high school senior, but decided to skip signing in order to go to BYU to try to increase his draft stock, which he did.

Nielson was the Utah Gatorade Player of the Year back in 2019 when he was drafted and was ranked as the 143rd best player in that draft, but he fell this year as he was ranked the 320th prospect by Baseball America coming into this draft.

Cy is a left-handed pitcher that sits at 6’3 and 210 pounds, who while originally started as a starter, was converted into a relief pitcher. This change did help him some, as he had drastically different stats from the 2021 season to the 2022 season.

In 2021, 6 of his 18 appearances were as a starter, which was a horrid season for him. He gave up 29 runs in only 33.2 innings, which led to an abysmal 7.752 ERA and a WHIP of 1.931. This is really bad, as it means he was allowing close to two runners to reach base every inning that he pitched.

In 2022 though, he really made a drastic change, as he appeared in 28 games, but all of them were made as a reliever. He managed to drop his ERA from 7.752 all the way down to 3.2, and drop his WHIP down almost in half to 1.04.

Another large improvement was his walk rate. In 2021, Nielson walked 29 batters, but he cut that down all the way to only 7 in 2022. This is what really helped to drive down his WHIP and in turn his ERA.

While Cy Nielson has had some ups and downs so far in his collegiate career, it will be interesting to watch if he can continue to improve as a reliever, especially since the Pirates have luck when developing relievers/closers.