Early in the 2025 season, the Boston Red Sox have struggled in a familiar area: pitching. They’ve allowed the seventh-most runs per game in MLB, Tanner Houck and Walker Buehler have been inconsistent, and they’re still waiting on the returns of Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford and Lucas Giolito from injury. It’s hard to imagine where this pitching staff would be without Garrett Crochet, who has been the lone bright spot.
These struggles are especially frustrating thanks to the early success of Quinn Priester on the Milwaukee Brewers. The Red Sox traded Priester to Milwaukee at the start of the season, securing a Competitive Balance Round A pick and outfield prospect Yophery Rodriguez in return. It looked like a great trade for Boston at the time, as Priester hadn’t performed well in his young career.
However, Priester has looked outstanding in his first two starts for the Brewers. He’s allowed just one run in 10 innings pitched and has struck out eight batters. That kind of production would be a welcome addition to a Sox rotation, which has stumbled in the early weeks of the campaign.
Former Red Sox pitcher Quinn Priester finding success in Milwaukee as Boston needs pitching depth
Of course, there was no way to predict that Priester would break out with the Brewers. He was a first rounder out of high school and undoubtedly had potential, but his numbers at the big league level didn’t inspire much confidence. But the Brewers have shown time and time again that they know how to develop pitching, as evidenced by the success of Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta and others.
Whether Priester’s early success will continue remains to be seen. By almost every metric, he’s overperformed by a large margin. His ERA of 0.90 is far lower than both his FIP of 4.21 and his expected ERA of 5.33. His chase rate, whiff rate, strikeout rate and barrel rate are all below the 20th percentile, and he ranks below league average in a litany of other stats, except his ground ball rate. With all of those numbers working against him, a 0.90 ERA likely isn’t sustainable, and the Red Sox still fleeced the Brewers for the young righty.
