Baseball has always had room for the hard reset, and Nate Pearson spent 2026 trying to make one count.
The right-hander opened the year in Houston, and after 16 appearances with solid results, the Astros designated him for assignment on July 19. That set up another move in a career that has already taken him from Toronto to Chicago to Houston and, three days later, to Kansas City. Pearson made his first Royals appearance on July 26.
That kind of wandering has become part of the story. Toronto grabbed Pearson with the 28th pick in the first round of the 2017 MLB Draft, and the hype came fast.
Baseball America’s draft report raved about the arsenal, saying, “[h]is fastball shows late running or sinking movement and he made tremendous growth with his command. His changeup now projects as a plus pitch, showing late fade when he locates it down in the zone.
He throws both a slider and a curveball, and scouts see his slider as a more prominent part of his future. The pitch shows slurvy shape and sits in the low 80s.
Pearson’s athleticism and rapid growth could lead him to come off the board as high as the back of the first round.”
For a while, he looked like the Blue Jays’ next big thing. He finished as Toronto’s No. 1 prospect in 2020, then checked in at No. 2 in both 2021 and 2022. Baseball America ranked him No. 7 overall in baseball in 2020.
The big-league workload never fully matched the pedigree. Pearson debuted in that unusual 2020 season and started four games, adding another appearance in relief.
That remains the most starts he’s logged in any major league season. Since then, he has started only two more games and has mostly worked out of the bullpen.
The reason is plain enough: injuries. Pearson has dealt with multiple elbow issues, along with groin, shoulder, and lat injuries, plus illness. That is a big part of why a pitcher with so much raw ability has now been with four different clubs since 2024.
With Kansas City, Pearson flashed enough to keep the intrigue alive. In his first 20 outings for the Royals, he logged 21 innings, struck out 20, walked seven, and allowed 11 hits, none of them home runs. He finished that stretch with a 0.43 ERA, 2.62 FIP, a .212 batting average on balls in play, three saves, one blown save, 11 holds, and four doubles allowed.
Then came the downturn. Starting around Sept.
13, Pearson’s results fell apart over his final six appearances. In those five innings, he struck out five, walked seven, and gave up 10 hits, including one home run.
His line ballooned to a 21.60 ERA, 9.10 FIP, a .474 batting average on balls in play, one blown save, no saves, no holds, and three doubles allowed.
By that point, the Royals were out of the race, but the slump still mattered. It left Kansas City with one fewer dependable arm in a bullpen that, right from the start, did not have many dependable arms.
Pearson is arbitration-eligible for one more season, so the Royals have a decision coming. He made $1.35 million last offseason with Houston, and a raise is coming one way or another. Kansas City can bring him back or move on.
Given what he showed in those first 20 appearances, the appeal is obvious. There’s still something there.
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