Pittsburgh Pirates Draft: Recapping Final 3 Day Two Picks

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Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports /

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.

Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports /

Then with pick 260, the Pirates took Mike Walsh, a righty from Yale. Walsh is a 6’2, 200 righty whose main pitch is his 92-93 mph fastball.

In 2020, Mike Walsh only pitched seven innings and carried an ERA north of 15 at 15.43, and a WHIP of 2.714. This was very limited action, as the season was canceled after 10 games due to COVID, so the numbers are inflated.

In 2021, Walsh did not pitch at all, but he did have a full season in 2022. In 2022 he pitched 65 innings and had a record of 4-2, but had an ERA of 5.68. His WHIP was down to 1.37 though, which is not as bad as one would expect when looking at his ERA.

The aspect of his game that needs the most work and causes the inflated is his ability to limit the long ball. He gave up a homerun approximately every five and a half innings, as he allowed 12 long balls in his 11 games/65 innings.

While his numbers look very bad, if one does not consider his two rough outings in which he allowed 10 runs in each of these games, his ERA drops from 5.68 down to around 3.44, which is a lot better.

This shows that while yes he has a few bad starts overall he has not been quite as bad as his numbers may show. His numbers almost resemble Bryse Wilson as of late, as he has also had a couple of bad starts, but has had flashes of being good also.

It will be interesting to see if Mike Walsh can build upon his better starts, and can put those two horrid ones in the past.

Lastly, at pick 290, the Pirates selected Tanner Tredaway from the University of Oklahoma. Tredaway is a 6’0 188 pound redshirt senior outfielder, who primarily would play in center and right field.

Tanner Tredaway is only the Pirates’ third true position player, and the second outfielder taken by them in this draft. The other two position players were Termarr Johnson at pick 4 and Tres Gonzalez in the fifth round.

Tanner had a great season in 2022 compared to his other seasons at Oklahoma. In 2022, he had a batting average of .373 with an OBP up over .400 at .416. He did also blast nine homers in 2022, which is more than his combined total from the previous three combined seasons of 6.

The most impressive stat is the number of RBIs that he had. Tredaway averaged nearly one RBI per game he played, as he had 61 RBIs in 63 games.

Tredaway will be looking to build upon the great season that he had this year, as he begins his pro ball journey over the next couple of months.

As Day Two coverage of the MLB Draft is wrapping up, stay up to date with everything that goes down on Day Three tomorrow and with the trade deadline, that is quickly approaching, here at Rum Bunter.

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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.

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