Pirates can rest easy as former reliever falls apart with rival

Kyle Nicolas was perhaps the quintessential example of a "serviceable" reliever during his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He pitched to a 4.68 over three years and 86 appearances, good enough for 0.2 fWAR. Not bad, but hardly anything worth writing home about.

When the Pirates set out to rebuild their roster this offseason, they came to the inevitable conclusion that a replacement-level arm in the relief corps just didn't have much value. Hence, they shipped Nicolas off to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for feel-good outfield prospect Tyler Callihan.

Of course, when you complete an intradivision trade, there's always the fear that it'll come back to bite you. The Reds have made a recent habit of squeaking value out of ragtag bullpens, so it wasn't unrealistic to expect a breakout from Nicolas upon his departure from Pittsburgh.

Well, it's safe to say those fears have been unfounded — at least for now.

Nicolas has been all over the place in 2026, but his latest outing was a true one-man disaster class. Entering the ninth inning of a game the Reds were winning by double-digits, the right-hander needed 42 pitches to get the final three outs. He surrendered four runs on just one hit, which is only possible because he walked five batters in the inning.

At least he struck out a pair?

Kyle Nicolas' unceasing command issues with Reds prove Pirates were right to trade him

Nicolas has always had some impressive stuff — he never ran a strikeout rate below 20% in Pittsburgh. The problem is that he just doesn't know where the ball is going when it leaves his hand. He's issued free passes to multiple batters in three of his six outing this year, leading to a ghastly 28.6% walk rate.

Obviously, Pirates fans know this is just par for the course with the 27-year-old. His command issues may be more exaggerated than ever this year, but free passes have been a problem since he was a prospect in the minor leagues. In fact, he's never walked fewer than 10% of hitters in any of his professional seasons.

The Bucs' bullpen may be struggling right now outside of its highest-leverage options, but the last thing this relief corps needs is another walk machine. The Pirates were right to give up on Nicolas when they did, especially because he enabled them to buy low on a legitimate prospect in Callihan.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow