Who Is Quinn Priester, Pitcher Red Sox Acquired In Trade With Pirates?

The Boston Red Sox added to their pitching reservoir Monday, acquiring right-hander Quinn Priester from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for prospect Nick Yorke.

Priester’s major league numbers jump off the page — for all the wrong reasons — but he still joins the Red Sox organization with a ton of upside. The deal has the potential to benefit Boston in the short term and the long term, provided the Red Sox are able to tap into the 23-year-old’s talent and work with him to achieve some consistency.

Let’s start with the basics: Priester is a former first-round pick, landing with the Pirates as the No. 18 overall selection in 2019. He was widely considered a top-100 prospect before the 2021, 2022 and 2023 seasons, with his stock dropping only after he stumbled in the majors. Priester owns a 6.46 ERA in 94 2/3 career MLB innings since debuting in 2023.

Priester’s minor league track record is much better, though, with the Cary-Grove High School product posting a 3.81 ERA in 31 career Triple-A appearances (29 starts) spanning 151 innings. Toss in his success at other levels, plus his prospect pedigree, and it’s easy to see why the Red Sox were willing to overlook his big-league struggles and relinquish a legitimate asset to strike a deal before Tuesday’s MLB trade deadline.

An evaluator told The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey of Priester: “has a lot of pitches. Mainly sinker FB 92-96. Mixes CB and SL. Change has good promise … hard to say why he has struggled but that’s pretty common … He is still very young obviously.”

Youth and club control — he’s under contract through 2030 — are reason enough to take a flier on Priester. The Red Sox have a surplus of middle infielders coming up through the system, including shortstop prospect Marcelo Mayer, and Yorke is Rule 5 eligible this offseason, meaning Boston would’ve been required to add him to the 40-man roster.

Since Yorke has endured his own developmental hiccups, he was a prime trade candidate, and this particular deal gives the Red Sox a hurler who could factor into their plans for the foreseeable future. That’s preferrable to a veteran rental who could walk in free agency this winter regardless of how the remainder of 2024 shakes out.

The Red Sox could elect to groom Priester as a starter, the role envisioned for him when he joined the Pirates pipeline. The 6-foot-3, 210-pound righty features a five-pitch mix that’s conducive to the job. And while his four-seam fastball and sinker have been knocked around in the majors, there’s still an intriguing arsenal for Red Sox pitching coach Andrew Bailey and the rest of Boston’s staff to work with moving forward.

If that plan fails, Priester already has bullpen experience the Red Sox can draw upon. A multi-inning relief role seems plausible, especially with Boston’s young rotation, collectively, showing signs of fatigue as inning workloads creep into uncharted territory.

How good or bad is Priester? It’s difficult to say. Sometimes, a change of scenery is all that’s needed to unlock a young pitcher still very much searching for his MLB identity.

But from a logistical standpoint, the trade makes plenty of sense — for both sides — and the Red Sox should feel good about the player they received Monday from the Pirates. He fits a need and has room for growth that could pay dividends down the road.