Brewers trade for RHP Quinn Priester

[JosephC]

At first I thought he was the typical Rays type pitcher, a guy who throws a lot of high fastballs with good spin.  That was his reputation a few years ago.  The problem is the velocity on the 4-seamer is now about 93 MPH per Baseball Savant and the spin rate is not even average.

He has evolved into a sinker/slider pitcher that also throws a curveball, change-up and still uses the 4-seamer.  The curveball sits at 81 MPH but all the other pitches are right in that 87-93 MPH window.  There is nothing that really stands out in the velocity/movement data that makes him seem like a real attractive guy to go out and get.

Strikeout rate was only 5.98 per 9 innings in the majors last year, probably due to him now being primarily a sinker/slider type pitcher.  Solid ground-ball rate but still has a HR/FB rate of 17.1%.  Have to wonder if the Brewers will have him stick to this path, or if they have spotted some mechanical adjustment to bring some of that velocity back.

[MilwaukeeBeers]

Arnold man I don't know. This is by far the worst trade of his tenure here on its surface. Shane Smith is better than Priester and we had him on our roster the whole time. But decided to give sports to Elvin and Connor Thomas instead. Two back to back baffling decisions. And I am extremely pissed about losing that pick and its bonus pool slot. 

[jay87shot]

1 hour ago, MoreTrife said:

Can anyone give a summary of the Priester? Starter or relief? ptiches? AAA?

As mentioned he will start, he is a 5 pitch mix, the sinker and 4 seam averaged 93 mph last year. Sinker/Slider 30%-ish each, 4 seam, curve, change 13-15% each, 1% cutter (could be misreads or is developing). My guess is that we add that cutter and refine the breaking pitches to 1 more consistent pitch. The changeup could use some tweaking as it is 88 and only 5 mph behind the heater. 

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/quinn-priester-682990?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb

He was a very promising prospect picked 18th in 2019, generally 60 grade fastball, 60 grade breaking ball as a prospect (top 50-100, most publications 21 and 22 seasons and start of 23 ). He averaged over a k per inning in the minors, but last year in the bigs 6.0 k/9 (better in AAA). My guess is that if our staff gets him right there is a quality #3 starter potential. Having control through at least 2030 (maybe more if more time spend in minors) and experience in the bigs he probably isn't to far away from realizing that potential. However there is a lot of DL Hall feel to him when I read about him, in that I read up to 96/97 and see some nice minor league stuff but when I look at his big league tape it is 92-94 and a contact orientated stats. My guess is he is Adrian Houser on the floor and maybe like Chris Bassitt on the higher end. If we can get an mph or 2 on the fastball(s), make small tweaks to the breaking pitches and change they stuff is good enough to get that to that prospect ceiling quickly. If that happens this is a decent trade, if he follows the DL Hall inconsistency path it could be real bad.

[ghostdrew]

My thoughts let it play out y'all need to relax a bit 😊

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

1 minute ago, ghostdrew said:

My thoughts let it play out y'all need to relax a bit 😊

Don't you know this is the internet? We need to immediately declare that the Brewers lost the trade in grandiose fashion.  

[brewcrewdue80]

Awesome!. 6'3 former 1st rd High School prep arm.  A victim of 2020's lost season.  Former top 60 prospect and throws a 4 pitch mix.  Who does this sound like?  Burnes.  Change a 4/5 pitch mix to focus on 3 good/better pitch mix. The fact he's not a 2 pitch mix and needs to develop a 3rd is an amazing get. 6-3 again will bring confidence towards filling out and throwing high number of innings. Good deal with immediate impact vs 2+years away.

[Frisbee Slider]

Maybe I misremember but I received a lengthy survey from the Brewers after attending opening day. I perceived an important question being are the Brewers heading in the right direction on the field? I’m sure 80% of people disagreed with ‘going in the right direction’ after 0-4 start.

Maybe we are super committed to ensuring our bite of the apple for 2025?

Plus, we truly need starting pitching this week and next.

[wallus]

Looked at Career ERA, saw 6.00+ and felt better ;)

[adambr2]

11 minutes ago, brewcrewdue80 said:

Awesome!. 6'3 former 1st rd High School prep arm.  A victim of 2020's lost season.  Former top 60 prospect and throws a 4 pitch mix.  Who does this sound like?  Burnes.  Change a 4/5 pitch mix to focus on 3 good/better pitch mix. The fact he's not a 2 pitch mix and needs to develop a 3rd is an amazing get. 6-3 again will bring confidence towards filling out and throwing high number of innings. Good deal with immediate impact vs 2+years away.

Wow, putting “sounds like” and “Burnes” in the same paragraph of this thread is, uh, optimistic to say the least. I think his ceiling is the middle of the rotation. 

He’d need to add some pretty good velocity to his fastball to be mentioned in the same sentence as Corbin Burnes, who, not for nothing, was a 4th round pick.

[biedergb]

3 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

I perceived an important question being are the Brewers heading in the right direction on the field? I’m sure 80% of people disagreed with ‘going in the right direction’ after 0-4 start.

I think we all have different thoughts on the matter, which is why opinions may differ greatly. Obviously any fan wants success now and in the future, so that is the ideal goal.

My personal wishes for how the team goes (since overpaying for a free agent or 2 is not going to happen, and losing stars to free agency will ultimately happen) is to try to dominate in those truly competitive windows (like we had from 2018 - 2022). The team did that mostly in 2018/2019 and lesser degree in 2021 (should have paid to get an impact bat to go along with that generational pitching staff).

I was fine taking a mulligan this year to try to stay as competitive as possible in the 2026-2028 window when the core (Chourio, Contreras, and Mitchell/Frelick) are under control, and when Quero, Pratt could join them. Keeping the pieces until then and then using assets to try to get that key slugger or key pitcher.  I think Preister is a nice get, but don't see him being a core piece, and we don't know the value of Yophery, the CBA pick and the PTBNL will be, and those values could be very high, particularly the CBA pick since the extra bonus pool money has been something this organization has done well with (see '23 draft, and lesser degree '24 drafts).

It does seem like the "bite of the apple" comment Stearns made on his way out has been the new motto for the current front office and that is what I disagree with. I want this team to be competitive every year but will take a down year to "retool". But that is just me, and others don't have to agree, and clearly Arnold & Co don't need to listen to me. OK that's the end of this rant. (Plus I am way way to invested in our young prospects as I love to watch 100-200 minor league games on milb.tv per year)

[MilwaukeeBeers]

Priester is far closer to Adrian Houser than he is to Corbin Burnes....

[adambr2]

18 minutes ago, MilwaukeeBeers said:

Priester is far closer to Adrian Houser than he is to Corbin Burnes....

Yeah, there’s a zillion pitchers out there under 25 who lost some development to COVID who have a 5+ pitch mix. Very few of them are going to turn out worthy enough to hold Corbin Burnes’ jock, much less turn out to be his comparable. 

[Frisbee Slider]

Do we value his ‘first round pick’ pedigree?

[Sugarrayray]

Although I am displeased with this trade, it does appear his velocity is up a bit this year, no?

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Digesting this.

Here are my thoughts.

Primarily, we're starting from a position of deep need, so that means we're in the weaker negotiating position. The result is about what you would expect. We gave up a lot for a former top prospect with some really strong potential and a lot of team control. As others have pointed out, that's expensive.

As individual pieces, I'm not that upset about the give here. We're pretty deep in the outfield, and Rodriquez is years away. The comp pick is the comp pick. Valuable if you hit big, but it's hard to hit big. PTBNL, cash, whatever. All three at once is a little hard to swallow, though.

If Priester hits and becomes a rotation piece for 3 years, that's a big win, almost regardless of what happens with Rodriguez or the comp pick.

What I like is this: If we're out of it around the deadline, we can build back a lot of the capital we traded away. If we're in it, you've got the kind of arm you might want to add, plus the return of Woody et al. I am sure the org budgets something for deadline deals, so maybe we're just taking that capital and spending it now. 

Would I have done that? I don't know. I have no idea how far away our IL pitching army is. This makes me think we need the depth now, or that Cortes' injury is quite concerning.

[CheeseheadInQC]

I hope this turns out OK, but man that is a lot to give up for a guy with that career ERA who wasn’t getting big league starts for a team with its own set of injury issues.

I think we got spoiled by Chourio, but few prospects have as much success as Yophery has by that age.

[BeerSlide]

What is most exciting about this for me is that while they obviously think they can do their Brewers unlocking thing with him, his size, velocity and team control potentially make the picture who emerges from their lab more devistating than merely survivable. I feel like a lot of their most recent reclamation attempts have been with lower ceiling guys. (which is also super valuable.) It's just harder to come by clay they both identified and who has the tools.

With that said, no doubt a level of desperation played a role here and affected the price. Boston knows it, and probably like all teams now, get nervous when we come sniffing around one of their pitchers.

[Jopal78]

21 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

Do we value his ‘first round pick’ pedigree?

The only pitchers drafted higher than Priester that year were Nick Lodolo, Alex Manoah and Jackson Rutledge. Zach Thompson and George Kirby taken in the next two picks after Priester.
The Brewers selected Ethan Small with their first round pick that year. 

Some bonafide starting pitchers in that first round and only one true bust so far out of the above (Small).

Priester was a first round pick for a reason. I like the idea of getting a young ground ball pitcher and see with a little fine tuning what they got. 
 

 

[wibadgers23]

This trade is just gross. Trading Yophery is bad enough but then to add a draft pick  just screams panic move.

[tmwiese55]

You guys know more than me as far as trade values etc so I trust you're all generally correct in being too much to have given up.

That said, He's only had like 10-15 total starts so I'd say the general vibe on trashing the young player is probably step too far too.  Lots of guys struggle for a bit before figuring it out, 10-15 starts with a chunk for a trash organization isn't enough to write him off.  The evaluation on stuff/mechanics and what our superior pitching coaching can do with him should outweigh those handful of starts.    So just saying I like it as a buy low/early (though I get you're saying the price wasn't low enough, so I get that we probably should've passed) type move that hopefully hits with the potential of several years of controlled starting p if it works.     I assume he has options left too so can easily go down for some tinkering once our injured guys get back.  Besides the immediate need now, this could've also been just as much a move for next year when they lose so many SPs

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I am actually pretty excited to see him in action for the Brewers soon. The value that the Brewers gave up in this deal indicates that they think very highly of Priester's talent and future in the organization. 

[edfunderburk]

32 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

If Priester hits and becomes a rotation piece for 3 years, that's a big win, almost regardless of what happens with Rodriguez or the comp pick.

Agreed 🙌

[Matt]

Has anyone seen whether or not they're adding him to the ML roster right away? Seems like a guy you'd want to get ironed out in AAA or in the Lab before just letting him go against MLB hitters. 

[edfunderburk]

I like the trade if for no other reason - we may never see another Elvin Rodriguez start 👏👊🙌💪⚾️

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

3 minutes ago, Matt said:

Has anyone seen whether or not they're adding him to the ML roster right away? Seems like a guy you'd want to get ironed out in AAA or in the Lab before just letting him go against MLB hitters. 

This McCalvy tweet seems to indicate that Priester is jumping straight to the MLB club.