Next Season, Quinn Priester Could Start for the Red Sox (Or for Another Team)

In July, with the Red Sox farm system overflowing with position-player prospects, Craig Breslow decided to flip one of those Triple-A bats for an arm. He sent Nick Yorke, the team’s sixth-ranked prospect, to Pittsburgh in exchange for right-hander Quinn Priester. The 24-year-old Priester’s swing-and-miss stuff has made waves on Twitter ever since he was drafted out of high school in 2019, but he’s more of a sinkerballer, with groundball tendencies similar to Tanner Houck’s. It would be unfair to expect Priester to make a leap like the one Houck made this year, but the ability to crack the 2025 starting rotation is well within reach.

Since he arrived in Worcester, the Red Sox have instructed Priester to lower his release point. He’s seen velocity tick up slightly on his sinker, and with the new arm slot has come a new objective.

More velocity obviously puts more stress on a pitcher’s arm, but it also brings more strikeouts, and over Priester’s 20 major-league appearances thus far, strikeouts have been hard to come by. While in the majors, he has carried a 6.45 ERA and 15.4 strikeout rate, a far cry from his 3.60 ERA and 24.7% strikeout rate in the minors. Once he’s back in the majors, the contact-managing righty will want to see his strikeout rate around the low 20s, similar to Houck’s. Between Houck, Priester, and Brayan Bello, it’s clear this coaching staff and front office love fielding groundball pitchers at hitter-friendly Fenway. The only problem with that plan is that whether you look at the defensive metrics or just watch the games, it’s easy to see that Boston’s infield defense has been putrid. It should be better with a fully healthy Trevor Story and an improved Triston Casas, but this has been a problem in the organization for some time now.

Plenty of people would like to see Priester pitch in the major sometime during these last two soul-crushing weeks of baseball, including general managers around the league. A young, controllable starter with a chance to crack the big-league rotation is a legit trade piece. How much will the Red Sox and other teams value the adjustments Priester has made since the trade? Will teams want to see him against a big-league lineup? Will the Red Sox want to risk seeing him exposed by big-league hitters, costing him trade value? Those are questions for the negotiating table.

This offseason, there’s hope, expectation, and an absolute need to add a front-line starter to join Houck, Bello, and Lucas Giolito in the rotation. The fifth starter spot would then be a battle between Kutter Crawford, Richard Fitts, Priester, and possibly Zach Penrod, who has looked excellent in his three big-league starts. Fitts didn’t dominate in his two stars, but he did look like he belonged in the majors. Crawford’s continued struggles with the long ball were a disappointment, but he’s been a valuable surprise: an above-average pitcher for two seasons who led the team in starts this year. Keeping two of these three starters as depth pieces will be very important, but don’t be surprised to see one of them included as a trade piece for a bigger fish this offseason.

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