{"id":115242,"date":"2026-03-06T18:44:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T23:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=115242"},"modified":"2026-03-06T18:44:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T23:44:42","slug":"recent-trade-pirates-prospect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/03\/06\/recent-trade-pirates-prospect\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Trade Opens Door for Pittsburgh Pirates Relief Prospect"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Pirates added multiple relief pitching prospects to their 40-man roster this past offseason. The most notable was Brandan Bidois. The next best was right-hander Ryan Harbin. The former 17th-round draft pick has shown off impressive stuff throughout the minor leagues. However, after trading Kyle Nicolas to the Cincinnati Reds<\/a> in Spring Training, the Pirates opened the door for Ryan Harbin<\/a> to make his MLB debut in 2026.<\/p>\n

Recent Trade Opens Door for Pittsburgh Pirates Relief Prospect<\/h2>\n

Season with Plenty of Positives and Negatives<\/h3>\n

Harbin pitched 63.1 innings between High-A Greensboro and Triple-A Indianapolis with some very mixed numbers. Let’s start with the bad. The right-handed reliever had a 4.69 ERA, 1.59 WHIP, and 16% walk rate. But on the positive side, he also struck out nearly a third of opponents with a 31.9% K%. Harbin kept the ball on the ground and limited home runs very well. He had a 45.5% ground ball percentage and a HR\/9 ratio of just 0.43. Despite the poor ERA, ERA estimators loved Harbin’s work. The reliever had a 3.41 FIP and 3.59 xFIP.<\/p>\n

Stuff Without Location?<\/h3>\n

Harbin is one of the hardest-throwing pitchers in the Pirates\u2019 system. His four-seam fastball sat around 97-98 MPH last year. The pitch had above-average vertical drop with plus horizontal movement at Triple-A. His upper-80s slider induced a whopping 45.5% whiff rate at Indianapolis last season. Finally, Harbin rounds out his pitch mix with a low-90s splitter. This is another offering with above-average movement and low spin.<\/p>\n

Like Nicolas, Harbin has had plenty of issues with his control. His lowest single-season walk rate is 12.4% in 2023. He struggled badly with free passes last year at Indianapolis, handing out 16 in 13.1 innings of work. Triple-A does use the fully automated strikezone, so there is a learning curve. However, Harbin learned the hardest way possible, walking more batters than he struck out.<\/p>\n

Sidelined For Now, But an Opportunity Could Arise Later This Year<\/h3>\n

The downside is Harbin won\u2019t have an opportunity to break camp with the Pirates this season. He is currently sidelined with a teres major and latissimus dorsi injury<\/a>. He also would have had a very hard time making the Pirates\u2019 roster, even without the injury. The core of the Bucs\u2019 bullpen is mostly set. Dennis Santana<\/a>, Justin Lawrence<\/a>, Gregory Soto<\/a>, Mason Montgomery<\/a>, and Isaac Mattson<\/a> are guaranteed bullpen roles. The aforementioned Bidois is likely to take priority over Harbin. Evan Sisk<\/a> is another reliever who will likely take priority over Harbin. Even if Carmen Mlodzinski<\/a> opens the year in the rotation, the Pirates have plenty of pitchers who will fill out the back of the bullpen. That includes Hunter Barco<\/a>, Jose Urquidy<\/a>, and Thomas Harrington<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, Harbin\u2019s path to the big leagues just got a little easier with Kyle Nicolas out of the way. Nicolas was likely the previous first man up for the Pirates\u2019 bullpen. But now, if an injury occurs after Harbin\u2019s return from the IL, Ryan Harbin may be the Pirates\u2019 first choice. The right-hander has shown the Bucs can definitely work with him, and while he may have control issues, it isn\u2019t anything the Pirates haven\u2019t attempted to tackle before.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Pirates added multiple relief pitching prospects to their 40-man roster this past offseason. The most notable was Brandan Bidois. The next best was right-hander Ryan Harbin. The former 17th-round draft pick has shown off impressive stuff throughout the minor leagues. However, after trading Kyle Nicolas to the Cincinnati Reds in Spring Training, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5765,"featured_media":115257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"504","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1071],"tags":[29129,3911],"class_list":["post-115242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pirates","category-mlb","tag-isaac-mattson","tag-jose-urquidy"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5765"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115242"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115258,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115242\/revisions\/115258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}