P2Daily: The Importance Of Getting Quinn Priester Back

It was a special night in Bradenton Thursday, as four pitchers combined to throw a no-hitter against Clearwater. It was a night filled with great defensive plays and good pitching throughout, and Bradenton now has no-hitters in back-to-back seasons.

In the bigger scope of things, that was in all likelihood the second most significant thing to happen that day.

Quinn Priester had been out with an oblique injury up till Thursday, when he returned to the mound in a rehab start that lasted three innings. He struck out one and hit a batter, he also made a fantastic defensive play recovering from getting hit in the leg by a comebacker, and still got the runner.

The important thing is that he is on the mound, pitching again and should join up with Mike Burrows in Altoona very soon.

After being the team’s first round pick in 2019, Priester quickly rose up the prospect rankings, being a near consensus top-100 prospect going into this year.

His prospect status took a hit after his 2021 season with Greensboro, a year he posted a 3.04 ERA, while striking out 98 in 97 2/3 innings. He played nearly the entire 2021 season in High-A at 20-years-old, one of the youngest pitchers in the league.

Yet he dropped in almost every prospect list, as the numbers didn’t pass the eye test of someone of his draft status, and there were some reports of a velocity drop as well. If you wanted to look at it a certain way as well, the one strikeout at Single-A is a reflection of the average strikeout stuff he had in Greensboro last year.

The more I’ve seen him pitch, and the more I’ve heard those around the organization talk about him, I’ve shifting the way I look at Priester as a prospect. Not in a bad way, however.

The way they talk about him makes me think of A.J. Burnett during the last Pirates run. The competitor. The bulldog. The guy who is going to do whatever it takes to win, even if the stat line isn’t the prettiest at the end of the day.

When Altoona Manager Kieran Mattison was on the Murphanko Experience podcast, I asked him about Priester and he told me a story about their playoff run last year. Priester just got done pitching and they were going to a game five, and he went into Mattison’s office and said he’d be in the bullpen if he needed him the following contest.

He wanted to be the guy in that situation. Mattison of course wasn’t about to risk one of the Pirates top prospects for that, but that moment rightfully stood out to him.

Although it’s probably unfair to say Priester may have slid down the Pirates’ internal prospect rankings since he hasn’t been on the field, that may still hold true just based off the way Burrows has pitched.

Even if that’s the case and Priester has dropped to the third best pitching prospect, that seems like a good problem to have, and regardless where he slides into the rotation he exhumed that perfectionist winning mentality that can be infectious on an up and coming contending team down the road.