Nick Solak

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Nicholas Blake Solak

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Biographical Information[edit]

Second baseman Nick Solak was drafted in the second round of the 2016 amateur draft by the New York Yankees, out of the University of Louisville. He began his pro career that season with the Staten Island Yankees, hitting a solid .321 in 64 games. In 2017, he began the season in the Florida State League with the Tampa Yankees, for whom he played 100 games, then was promoted to the Trenton Thunder of the AA Eastern League for an additional 30 games. Between the two stops, his batting line was .297/.384/.452, with 72 runs, 26 doubles, 12 homes and 53 RBIs.

On February 20, 2018, just after the opening of spring training, he was traded by the Yankees first to the Arizona Diamondbacks along with P Taylor Widener in return for 2B/3B Brandon Drury, then immediately to the Tampa Bay Rays along with P Anthony Banda and two players to be named later (Sam McWilliams and Colin Poche) in return for OF Steven Souza. The Rays had suddenly decided, as spring training opened, to shed some salary and Souza was the third veteran to be dealt by the team in the span of four days in return for prospects. He spent the season with the Montgomery Biscuits in the Southern League where he hit .282/.384/.450 in 126 games, with 19 homers and 76 RBIs. He played a lot of outfield in addition to second base that season. In 2019, he started the year in AAA with the Durham Bulls, where he hit .266 with 17 homers and 47 RBIs in 85 games. On July 13th, he was traded to the Texas Rangers in return for P Peter Fairbanks. He made his major league debut with the Rangers on August 20th, and hit .293 in 33 games with 5 homers and 17 RBIs; he also drew 15 walks for an excellent OBP of .393.

In 2020, he made the Rangers' opening day roster as a utility player. On August 9th, he had a homer taken away from him by the official scorer. Against the Los Angeles Angels, he hit a drive into the right field corner, which bounced in an out of RF Jo Adell's glove and over the fence, allowing him to circle the bases. The official scorer reversed his initial decision of giving him credit for a homer, however, as he ruled that the ball would not have cleared the fence were it not for Adell's assistance, and that it was catchable with ordinary effort. It was the first four-base error in a major league game in over five years. He hit .268 in 58 games that season in which the COVID-19 pandemic limited teams to 60 games, but with just 2 homers and 23 RBIs, his OPS+ was just 86. When he basically reproduced that performance over a full season in 2021, putting up an OPS+ of 87 in 127 games, his future as a major league regular was in trouble. Indeed he only played sparingly at the major league level over the next few seasons: 35 games in which he hit just .205 with Texas in 2022, and then one game each with the Atlanta Braves and the Detroit Tigers the next year; he did not have a plate appearance with either team. He was the first position player ever to play exactly one game in each league in one season; a number of pitchers have also done it.

The two games for two teams in 2023 just underplayed how much he had been a fixture on the transaction wire over that period: he had been purchased by the Cincinnati Reds after the 2022 season, then purchased by the Seattle Mariners from the Reds at the end of spring training in 2023. He was then claimed off waivers twice in one week in mid-April, first by the Chicago White Sox, then by the Braves. The Tigers had also picked him up off waivers, this time in June, and after the season he signed with the Mariners as a free agent. During that unusual 2023 season, he played for three AAA teams in addition to his two major league games: the Tacoma Rainiers, the Gwinnett Stripers and the Toledo Mud Hens, hitting .238 in a total of 96 games. He found a bit of stability in 2024, spending the entire season with Tacoma, where he hit .311 in 90 games.

He moved again before the 2025 season, signing with the Pittsburgh Pirates as a free agent. He started the year red hot with the AAA Indianapolis Indians, batting .393 with 6 homers in his first 32 games to earn a call-up to Pittsburgh in mid-May. However, he was in Pittsburgh just to help the bench and did not give his manager any immediate reason to play him more often as he went 1 for 11 in four games, after which he was outrighted back to the minors on June 3rd. He spent the remainder of the season with Indianapolis, batting an excellent .332 in 111 games, with 14 homers and 73 RBIs. He became a free agent again after the season and signed a minor league contract with the San Diego Padres that December.

Solak has a strong personal connection with bars, as he was named after the establishment where his parents met - Nicky's Sports Page in Dolton, IL - while he named his own daughter, Shea, after O'Shea's pub in Louisville, KY, which is where he met his wife Roxanne. It was therefore not a huge surprise that he appeared in the TV show Bar Rescue a few years later, a program in which the show's production team tries to help a floundering drinking and eating establishments regain its footing through various transformations. He said he became familiar with the show while staying at hotels on the road, with little to do except watching day-time television until it was time to go to the ballpark. He appeared in an episode filmed during the 2021 off-season when he was asked by the production team to scope out "Ace's Sports Hangar", a sports bar located not too far from Globe Life Field. He and Roxanne's experience as customers before the transformation was less than ideal as their drinks were poorly made, and the production crew had to shut down the kitchen before they could order any food, having spotted a flagrant health code violation. He and his wife then made a cameo appearance at the end of the show, stating that the place had been much improved thanks to the intervention. The episode originally aired in March of 2022 and is re-run frequently, giving him some visibility even when away from the big leagues.

Further Reading[edit]

  • Alex Stumpf: "Reality is, Solak has hidden fame from episode of 'Bar Rescue'", mlb.com, May 31, 2025. [1]

Related Sites[edit]

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