Brewers trade for RHP Quinn Priester

[endaround]

Got our Colin Rea replacement!

[duewizard]

23 minutes ago, SF70 said:

The team has added 24 pitchers in the last 2 draft-classes, many of them teenage, so the system has lots of arms for the PDS to work with regardless of arms drafted in ‘25.

Yeah. To me its not about the quantity of pitchers, rather the quality of players. Signings like Pratt require savvy management of the bonus pool and this trade hurts it

[TURBO]

1 hour ago, edfunderburk said:

What a challenging weekend for Grant Wolfram - the excitement of being called up to the major leagues, calling his wife & parents with the promotion news & getting them to Milwaukee for a game in which he did not play - then being demoted & DFA’d all in the same few days.
 

What a difficult ending to a dream come true experience. 

I hope he is retained but I would understand if he opted to become a free agent & try his luck elsewhere if unclaimed.

Brewers just traded him to BAL for Mike Cameron's son.

[patrickgpe]

26 minutes ago, edfunderburk said:

I’ve wondered if they already know that the Cortes injury is significant (hopefully not season ending TJ)

I left out the word doesn’t, I’m giving Arnold the benefit of the doubt on this, 

[Michael Trzinski]

5 hours ago, ghostdrew said:

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

Sounds like a plan!

[yfinn6]

My apologies if it's been said but the move is a gamble but IF Priester can develop into a mid-rotation starter that would be a massive W for the Brewers, IMO. Biggest thing is if he's healthy. 

It stinks to lose the draft pick and bonus pool but controllable, near MLB-ready talent is going to cost. 

[sveumrules]

1 minute ago, yfinn6 said:

My apologies if it's been said but the move is a gamble but IF Priester can develop into a mid-rotation starter that would be a massive W for the Brewers, IMO. Biggest thing is if he's healthy. 

It stinks to lose the draft pick and bonus pool but controllable, near MLB-ready talent is going to cost. 

Yeah, I think that’s the crux of it.

As much as it sucks to give up the pick/pool money & Yophery, I think many would be more sympathetic towards the exchange if we were getting back someone who had at least shown some success at the MLB level beyond the five good starts Priester has scattered on his resume.

Stings extra to give up that package for someone who still comes with quite a bit of uncertainty themself.

[biedergb]

9 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Yeah, I think that’s the crux of it.

As much as it sucks to give up the pick/pool money & Yophery, I think many would be more sympathetic towards the exchange if we were getting back someone who had at least shown some success at the MLB level beyond the five good starts Priester has scattered on his resume.

Stings extra to give up that package for someone who still comes with quite a bit of uncertainty themself.

Exactly for me. It’s the unknown. A few years back I would have assumed - pitching development lab, get him going and we churn out another.  But honestly since the Woodruff/Peralta/Burnes/Hader/Williams golden years of 2017-2020, we have helped Megill unleash, but other than that?  Got the most out of Rea, and had a good season from Myers, but not much which is more the norm.  A lot of assets for a very unknown commodity, when we could have had a similar unknown commodity if we added Shane Smith to our 40 man roster. Ugh

[brewers4eric]

I don't like this trade, but I'll trust the judgement of the Brewers' front office.  We need a pitcher, so run him out to the bump and let it fly.  It couldn't be any worse than the Bichette for Reimer trade back in 1992, could it?

[Frisbee Slider]

Could Yophery and the comp pick just turn into Dave Krynzel? We could use a starter that keeps us in games now and for the next few years.

Maybe it’s an overpay but we really won’t know for several years.

I guess we don’t think Carlos Rodriguez or Misiorowski can take the ball for Milwaukee in April.

[duewizard]

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

Yeah, I think that’s the crux of it.

As much as it sucks to give up the pick/pool money & Yophery, I think many would be more sympathetic towards the exchange if we were getting back someone who had at least shown some success at the MLB level beyond the five good starts Priester has scattered on his resume.

Stings extra to give up that package for someone who still comes with quite a bit of uncertainty themself.

Yeah, If the ERA was closer to the 4.75-5.15 I'd be more excited. 
We'll se how he does. If we get 400 IP to the tune of a 4.50 ERA over the next 4 years then I'll be happy to have been wrong with my gut feeling with this trade

[liveforoctober]

Two trades and we are 6% of the way into the season. With the makeup of our roster ... I wonder if we come close to double digit trade transactions before the year is over?

[Matt]

Law:

On what Quinn Priester needs to improve with the Brewers
Priester’s issue is that his four-seamer is a batting-practice fastball at this point. Hitters just destroy it. He went more sinker-heavy last year, and it helped a little, but he’s still way too north-south, with no pitch that moves much horizontally and an approach that lets hitters creep up and focus on the central part of the zone. The curveball could be an out-pitch for him and he has feel for a changeup. The Brewers have done well with pitching development lately, and I would expect them to add or alter a pitch for Priester so he can start for them.

Law on the Red Sox’s return
Rodriguez has significant upside as a hitter, with bat speed and potentially plus power down the road, but right now, he’s a hacker at the plate, and I think better pitching, even this year in High A, might eat him alive. The extra draft pick is probably just as valuable, given how deep this year’s college class seems to be.

[BallFour]

Matt Arnold's comments on Priester. 

“Having that kind of experience at a young age – how many guys have we seen come up to the Major League level and hit a roadblock over the years with us?” Arnold said. “Whether that’s Woody or Corbin Burnes or Freddy [Peralta], they all hit bumps along the way and they were all extremely talented.

“That’s what we believe we’re getting, not to put any unfair pressure on the kid here. But he really does have a great arm with a lot of good ingredients. There's a lot to like here. From all accounts, he is a really cerebral kid and open to making adjustments.”

https://www.mlb.com/brewers/news/brewers-quinn-priester-trade

[Sixtolezcano]

10 hours ago, KCBrewerfan34 said:

Is there a cost saving angle to this deal? Trading that Comp A pick is ridiculous. This draft is extremely important to stock our system with arms. Ugh 

Maybe Attanasio came into some extra money and thought the $3.0M Comp pick wasn’t that valuable to him or the team.

[Sixtolezcano]

3 hours ago, patrickgpe said:

The Red Sox won the day, but obviously it won’t matter much if Priester becomes a middle of the rotation starter for 5 years. This trade shows the price of mlb ready talent with that much control. I think this trade will go down as a disaster or one of Arnold’s best moves. 

Or maybe something in between….

[Frisbee Slider]

When was the last time another team acquired a 24 year old starting pitcher who was a high draft pick but perhaps underperformed in his first 99 innings? Or similar 

[Jim Goulart]

Via the "Wisconsin Sports Daily Show" with Steve "Sparky" Fifer: "MiLB Pipeline's Sam Dykstra breaks down the pieces of the Brewers' latest trade for SP Quinn Priester. Sam explains why he thinks Priester will fit in well with the Brewers & why fans should relax a little bit."

[Jim Goulart]

Via WSCO's "The Show with Balky":  "Brewer Fanatic and Brewer Fanatic Podcast co-host Jack Stern hangs out to talk about the Brewers giving up significant capital to the Boston Red Sox in a trade that brings starting pitcher Quinn Priester to Wisconsin." (go to the 23:45 minute mark)

[brewcrewdue80]

2 hours ago, Frisbee Slider said:

When was the last time another team acquired a 24 year old starting pitcher who was a high draft pick but perhaps underperformed in his first 99 innings? Or similar 

Well Priester must be 1st since he was drafted out of high school in 2019, missed 2020 minors season due to covid, and we're only begun 2025 season.

[Frisbee Slider]

4 minutes ago, brewcrewdue80 said:

Well Priester must be 1st since he was drafted out of high school in 2019, missed 2020 minors season due to covid, and we're only begun 2025 season.

Fair but there have been ‘talented’ 24-year old pitchers forever. I can’t remember the last time a younger major league ready pitcher was traded. I’m sure it has happened though.

[brewcrewdue80]

Just looked at his game logs for last season. Pitched twice vs Milw and went 6 IP in both games. He had 4 games of 6 IP last year which ties Ashby for number of 6 IP starts he's thrown for Milwaukee. Also while Priester had HR issues, he didn't give one up in his last 6 appearances. 14.2 IP.

[Simba2020]

4 hours ago, Frisbee Slider said:

When was the last time another team acquired a 24 year old starting pitcher who was a high draft pick but perhaps underperformed in his first 99 innings? Or similar 

Jared Shuster, Ryan Weathers? Hall kind of fits the bill to a certain extent. 

 

[brewerfan82]

5 hours ago, Frisbee Slider said:

When was the last time another team acquired a 24 year old starting pitcher who was a high draft pick but perhaps underperformed in his first 99 innings? Or similar 

I started poking around at this using FanGraph's Transaction Tracker (https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/transaction-tracker?transactiontype=trade&season=2023) and think I found a decent comp:

Ryan Weathers (MIA - SP)

• Acquired from Padres for 1B Garrett Cooper and RP Sean Reynolds
• 23 years old at time of trade (vs. 24 for Priester)
• Drafted 7th overall in the 2018 Amateur Draft (vs. 18th pick overall in 2019 draft)
• Major League stats at time of trade: 143 IP (vs. 99.2 for Priester), 5.73 ERA (vs. 6.23), 1.49 WHIP (vs. 1.55), 70 ERA+ (vs. 71), 5.53 FIP (vs. 5.72), 10.2 H/9 (vs. 10.3), 1.8 HR/9 (vs. 1.7), 3.2 BB/9 (vs. 3.7), 6.5 SO/9 (vs. 6.2), -1.0 WAR (vs. -1.0)

So Priester's a little older, was picked a little later in the draft, and has performed a little worse, but it's in the realm of similar ;)

Since his trade, Ryan Weathers had a rough 13 inning start with Miami (7.62 ERA), but really took a step forward last year putting up a 3.63 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 126 ERA+, 4.11 FIP, and 2.1 WAR in 86.2 IP .

---

Edited: To take this one step further and compare their minor league careers...

Overall Minors:

• Weathers (age 18-24): 337.2 IP, 4.69 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 4.67 xFIP, 8.34 K/9, 3.31 BB/9, 1.33 HR/9
• Priester (age 18-24): 408.2 IP, 3.61 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 3.89 xFIP, 9.43 K/9, 3.28 BB/9, 0.59 HR/9

 

[Frisbee Slider]

12 minutes ago, brewerfan82 said:

Ryan Weathers (MIA - SP)

• Acquired from Padres for 1B Garrett Cooper and RP Sean Reynolds

A good comp. Garrett Cooper could generously be described as replacement level with little value. Reynolds seems like an effective reliever, but is hurt now. 

Marlins win the trade. 🙂