For most prospects, it isn’t a question of whether or not they have the stuff to make the majors, but whether they can command it enough to pitch at the highest level.
Both Quinn Priester and Kyle Nicolas were high draft picks, so their talents have been long recognized by the Pirates, and around baseball in general. It’s been a matter of learning to control their stuff as they’ve moved up the ladder that continues to put them in position to be contributors at the major league level.
Priester has struggled to throw strikes at times in the minors, but has taken a very encouraging step forward this year, dropping his walk rate nearly three points to 6.7% (a shade under 10% last season).
While with Nicolas, there has never been doubting his stuff, it’s just been a matter of being able to find enough control to allow him to continue to be a starter.
“Sometimes it is just me not feeling my body on the mound perfectly,” Nicolas told Pirates Prospects. “Sometimes it’s just trying to be too perfect. My stuff plays well in the zone, and sometimes I try to nibble a bit too much against some of the hitters that I can just go straight at.”
A trip to the injured list cost him about a month, but Nicolas is just nine strikeouts away from topping the century mark with a couple of starts left in the season – more if he gets a late season taste at Triple-A after Altoona’s schedule is over.
He certainly has the ability to make hitters miss, but the 44 walks in 82 innings also play to the fact that he could still do better at attacking hitters more. With a fastball that can get into the mid-to-upper 90s and two breaking pitches he’s thrown for strikes, he has plenty of options to keep the opponent’s guessing.
We saw more of that during his last outing on September 2, as Nicolas walked four across 2 ⅔ innings, allowing four runs and three hits while striking out three. He threw 74 pitches before being lifted from the game, only 37 of which went for strikes.
Pitching coach Drew Benes recognizes the issues that players like Nicolas have in finetuning their control.
“I think direction through the plate is a big part of it,” Benes said of Nicolas. “He’s a big boy. A lot of times, big guys like that who are younger, they have to work a little bit to gain that body control and gain that consistency.”
Nicolas has shown a lot of good this season, including the ability to keep things under control. Easter Sunday, he pitched four perfect innings against the Richmond Flying Squirrels. He needed just 46 pitches, 34 of them going for strikes, to get through those four innings while striking out five batters.
When it comes to Priester, he recognizes working on your control is sometimes accepting that you are going to fail now, but in hopes to prosper later.
Priester has one of the best curveballs in the minors, and a sinker that continues to progress into a go-to pitch for him. He could just as easily lean heavily on them, but is he really developing? Priester discussed his own approach.
“It’s the minor leagues and you’re trying to get everything better,” said Priester. “Sometimes you’ve got to throw the 3-2 breaking ball, or the thing you’re not comfortable with, and you’re going to have to fail at it, and you’re going to have people get on your ass about it, because they don’t know.”
That’s a forgotten thing when it comes to developing in the minor leagues. You could easily rely heavily on what is already working well, put up flashy numbers but never actually grow as a pitcher. When you get to the majors, however, it will get exposed and it only sets you up for failure.
So, while it sucks to walk an extra batter, or give up runs, if you are learning and improving from it, that’s far better than never really pushing yourself to develop. Priester realizes that when it comes to putting yourself in a situation where you may end up failing.
“Putting yourself in that situation, taking the risk to do that,” said Priester, “That takes some balls, too. Going through with it and just kind of trusting yourself, and being okay with whatever happens.”
