The Boston Red Sox made five separate moves ahead of the MLB trade deadline on Tuesday, and perhaps the most intriguing of the bunch was sending Triple-A infield prospect Nick Yorke to the Pittsburgh Pirates for right-handed pitcher Quinn Priester.
Priester, 23, had struggled in his 20 appearances at the MLB level thus far, posting a 6.46 ERA (5.83) FIP and a 1.585 WHIP while striking out just 67 batters in 94 2/3 innings. However, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has been paying attention to the young pitcher for a while.
“He’s a guy that I’ve followed for a long time, actually going back to my Cubs’ days,” Breslow said (via MassLive). “I think he’s an extreme strike-thrower. Induces weak contact. Keeps the ball off the barrel of the bat.”
It's unknown exactly what Priester is going to be in the major leagues, as he's younger than every pitcher playing for Triple-A Worcester right now and younger than the majority of the pitchers for Double-A Portland as well.
Priester is younger than every Red Sox pitcher.
— Tom Caron (@TomCaron) July 30, 2024
He's younger than every WooSox pitcher
He's younger than 15 of 21 AA Portland pitchers
He's younger than 8 High-A Greenville pitchers
Has a career 2.87 ERA in AA/3.81 in AAA (3.21 in 7 2024 starts.)
That's why they made this deal.
“I think he’s still young and projectable," Breslow said. "When you put his age relative to what the rest of our young major league team looks like, he’s still younger by oftentimes multiple years. If you threw him into our Triple-A rotation, I think he’d be among the youngest, if not the youngest pitcher there.”
“We firmly believe that if we get him in our infrastructure, his best years are ahead of him. And there’s a lot of potential to work with. He’s got a pretty deep mix and he throws strikes with five different pitches. We feel like adding some strength, working on the delivery a little bit and tweaking some of the pitches hopefully will get the best out of him.”
Priester will start out with Worcester, but he'll likely be up with Boston by the end of the month. It will be very interesting to see how he looks once he gets working with pitching coach Andrew Bailey, who may be able to help him reach his full potential as a former first-round pick.
