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Brewers Announce Injury Updates: William Contreras, Caleb Durbin, Sal Frelick

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Milwaukee announced health news for several players on Thursday. Catcher William Contreras may be facing a corrective procedure for his finger, while infielder Caleb Durbin is expected to have elbow surgery, reports Adam McCalvy of MLB.com, among others. Outfielder Sal Frelick was cleared of any concern, as were pitchers Trevor Megill, DL Hall, and Logan Henderson.

Contreras played through a fractured left middle finger for the majority of the season. The injury was announced in early May, but it was believed to have occurred during the 2024 season. Contreras is meeting with a hand specialist next week for a “potential correction,” noted McCalvy.

The 27-year-old backstop endured his worst season in his three-year tenure in Milwaukee. Contreras slashed .260/.355/.399 with a 113 wRC+. Those would be solid marks for most catchers, but Contreras had set quite the standard since coming over from Atlanta. He posted back-to-back seasons with a batting average above .280 and a slugging percentage over .450. Contreras didn’t miss any time with the finger injury, but it seemed to inhibit his power. He totaled 35 extra-base hits this past season after exceeding that mark in doubles alone in both 2023 and 2024.

Durbin is slated for arthroscopic elbow surgery next week. The infielder dealt with elbow irritation near the end of the season, reports Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He’s expected to be healthy for the 2026 campaign.

Durbin came to the Brewers this past offseason in the trade that sent closer Devin Williams to the Yankees. He opened the season at Triple-A Nashville, but was promoted to the big-league club a few weeks into the season.  Durbin hit well enough to hold down the third base job for the rest of the year. He also made appearances at second base and shortstop. Durbin slashed a respectable .256/.334/.387 while recording double-digit home runs and stolen bases. He hit safely in six of Milwaukee’s nine postseason games, including two doubles and a triple.

Frelick battled knee soreness over the final months of the regular season. He missed a handful of games in early August, but never went to the IL. Offseason imaging on the knee came back clean, with the team describing the findings as “unremarkable.” Frelick is expected to have a normal offseason.

Megill and Hall both returned from injuries just in time for the playoffs. Megill’s flexor strain and Hall’s oblique issue were deemed fully recovered. Henderson’s season was cut short by a flexor strain of his own, but he’s also good to go now.

Quinn Priester is expected to have a normal offseason after dealing with wrist soreness. He never went to the IL with the injury and was available for a pair of postseason appearances. The issue will be managed with treatment and rehab heading into the 2026 season.

Brewers Place Trevor Megill On IL Due To Flexor Strain, Sign Erick Fedde

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3:45pm: Lefty Aaron Ashby will serve as the opener tonight with Fedde likely to follow in a bulk role, per Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. Quinn Priester was previously schedule to start tonight. McCalvy adds that Priester has a “wrist thing” which doesn’t require an IL stint but the Brewers are bumping his next start to Saturday.

2:45pm: The Brewers announced that they have signed right-hander Erick Fedde, who was released by Atlanta earlier this week. He will take the active roster spot of righty Trevor Megill, who has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a right flexor strain, retroactive to August 25th. Righty Logan Henderson has been transferred to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man spot for Fedde.

Megill himself provided an update on his status to reporters, including Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He downplayed the severity and characterized the move as “taking a step back and getting right for the postseason.”

That’s a fairly positive outlook on the situation, all things considered. Regardless, it’s a notable development this late in the season. The Brewers are the best team in baseball and Megill is their closer. He notched 21 saves last year and has added another 30 this season. He has thrown 46 innings this year with a 2.54 earned run average, 30.7% strikeout rate and 9% walk rate.

The Brewers have a strong bullpen on the whole and that should still be the case without Megill. Abner Uribe has a 1.71 ERA this year and could step into the ninth inning role. Still, no club wants to lose its closer, especially this close to the postseason. Teams generally lean harder on their relievers in the playoffs, where the off-days allow the top arms to pitch in almost every game.

For now, his roster spot goes to Fedde. Perhaps that is to give the club a fresh arm capable of covering multiple innings out of the bullpen. Thanks to a doubleheader last week, the Brewers are in a stretch of playing 19 games in 18 days. After on off-day on September 2nd, they play another eight straight. Put together, that makes for 27 games in 27 days.

Fedde hasn’t been having a good year. Between St. Louis and Atlanta, he has thrown 125 innings with a 5.76 ERA, 13.6% strikeout rate and 10.8% walk rate. That led the Cards to designate him for assignment in July. Atlanta picked him up in a cash deal but then released him a month later.

For the Brewers, he’s cheap and doesn’t require a commitment. The Cards are on the hook for the remainder of his salary, as they ate it in the deal which sent him to Atlanta. Milwaukee only has to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster.

There’s also theoretically a bit of upside, as Fedde was far better last year. He tossed 177 1/3 innings between the White Sox and Cardinals with a 3.30 ERA, 21.2% strikeout rate and 7.2% walk rate. The Brewers have a good reputation for getting the best out of pitchers and could perhaps get him back on track, though it’s also possible he does some mop up work and then gets quickly cut from the roster.

As for Henderson, he hit the 15-day IL in early August due to his own flexor strain. This move suggests the club doesn’t expect him back before early October. Perhaps he will be healthy for the playoffs but he probably didn’t have a shot at cracking the postseason roster. He’s had good results this year but has mostly been squeezed to the minors due to the other talented pitchers on the staff.

Photo courtesy of Michael McLoone, Imagn Images

The Brewers’ Surprising Rotation Depth

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Less than two months ago, conversations surrounding the Brewers’ rotation depth struck a wildly different tone than they do at present. Early in the 2025 campaign, Milwaukee’s injured list read more like a litany, and the team was so pressed for starting pitching that it swung a rare April trade of consequence, bringing in righty Quinn Priester from the Red Sox in exchange for a Competitive Balance draft pick and two prospects.

Fast forward six to seven weeks, and the Brewers have incurred some fan backlash for optioning righty Logan Henderson to Triple-A Nashville amid a brilliant start to his big league career. Fellow righty Chad Patrick might be the NL Rookie of the Year frontrunner at the moment — and he, too, could soon find himself optioned to Nashville. Manager Pat Murphy touched on the topic when asked by Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about how the Brewers plan to handle their rotation when Jose Quintana and Brandon Woodruff make their respective returns from the injured list within the next week or two.

Optioning Patrick wouldn’t be due to any concerns with his performance — far from it. The 26-year-old righty has never been a particularly touted prospect — he was acquired from the D-backs for journeyman infielder Jace Peterson and did not rank among Milwaukee’ top 30 prospects at Baseball America at any point — but has nevertheless emerged as a key piece of the pitching staff in 2025.

Patrick has pitched 57 2/3 innings and turned in a sterling 2.97 ERA with a slightly below-average 21.2% strikeout rate but a strong 7.5% walk rate. He’s probably going to have some regression in the home run department, based on his bottom-of-the-scale 26% ground-ball rate, a fair bit of hard contact allowed and a home park that’s quite conducive to the long ball, but that’s largely beside the point. Patrick’s production thus far has been nothing short of a godsend, and nothing in his performance would seem to dictate a demotion to the minor leagues.

As Murphy alluded to in his comments, however, such decisions aren’t always based on merit. The Brewers know all too well what it’s like to have a pitching staff stretched so thin that they need to go outside the organization for help. As already mentioned, they did just that within the first week of April. Teams try their best to avoid depleting depth and putting themselves in position to need to make that kind of move — which is how Patrick might well find himself in Nashville before long.

Milwaukee currently has Freddy Peralta, Aaron Civale, Patrick and Priester as starters on the active roster. Quintana and Woodruff are nearing returns. Both will be plugged into the rotation. Quintana was terrific for the Brewers before hitting the IL with a shoulder impingement. He tells Adam McCalvy of MLB.com that he expects to be activated to start this Sunday. Woodruff has in the past pitched like an ace when healthy and is in the second season of a two-year, $17.5MM deal. He’s going to get the opportunity to show he can again be a top-of-the-rotation presence.

When Quintana returns, the Brewers can go to a five-man staff. Woodruff’s return would present more questions. There aren’t enough starting spots for the number of generally competitive or established arms in Milwaukee’s rotation — a problem that seemed unfathomable in early April.

Priester has been the “weakest” performer of the group, carrying a 4.23 ERA in 44 2/3 innings. His paltry 16.6% strikeout rate and hefty 11.9% walk rate aren’t a great combination, prompting metrics like FIP (4.64) and SIERA (4.78) to cast a less favorable light on his performance. However, he’s also been doing his best work of late. Priester has a 2.76 ERA, 19.4% strikeout rate and 6.5% walk rate over his past three turns. He’s also down to only one minor league option year. Priester was optioned to Triple-A by the Red Sox at the end of camp but recalled by the Brewers following the early trade; since he spent fewer than 20 days in the minors, Priester didn’t actually burn through that option. Sending him down now for a period of 20 days or longer would exhaust that final option year.

That type of consideration typically doesn’t sit well with fans, but effective option management helps to preserve depth and avoid situations like the one the Brewers faced early in the season when they had more than an entire rotation’s worth of arms on the injured list — most of whom incurred their injuries in rapid succession. Preserving Priester’s final option beyond the current season carries some notable benefit, but the Brewers will obviously have to give some real thought to exhausting it anyhow.

Moving Priester to a swingman role is another option, but that would require either burning the final option year for Aaron Ashby or DL Hall or parting with Tyler Alexander entirely. Again, any of those scenarios will probably be considered, but come with a blend of short- and longer-term ramifications. Fans will surely bristle if the short-term considerations lead to Patrick following Henderson to Triple-A, but all MLB organizations are always toeing the line between maximizing short-term results and preserving long-term depth. That’s especially true of a cost-conscious Brewers club.

Whatever comes of the ostensible logjam, it’s also bearing in mind that it’s a short-term issue in and of itself. Injuries are inevitable, and if the Brewers somehow get to the trade deadline with the quintet of Peralta, Woodruff, Civale and Quintana healthy, there will probably be pitching-hungry teams inquiring about established, affordable veterans like Quintana and Civale, who’ll be free agents at season’s end.

Peralta, of course, will draw interest and present the Brewers with their latest decision on a cornerstone veteran whose club control is dwindling; they hold a club option over his 2026 season, after which he’ll be a free agent. In many regards, he’ll present the Brewers with similar decisions to the ones they’ve faced in the past on Josh Hader, Corbin Burnes, Devin Williams and Willy Adames. They’ll surely have compelling trade offers this summer, in the offseason and at the 2026 deadline — or they could go the route they did with Adames: hang onto Peralta through the end of his control window and make him a qualifying offer.

None of this even touches on the presence of top prospect Jacob Misiorowski — one of the top young arms in all of professional ball. The 2022 second-rounder, who turned 23 last month, boasts a 1.60 ERA in 56 1/3 Triple-A innings. He’s averaging 97.4 mph on a four-seamer that can climb into triple digits and has fanned 32.2% of his opponents against a 10% walk rate. At some point, this summer, he’ll likely make his MLB debut. Injured lefty Nestor Cortes is a piece in this spiraling puzzle as well. He went on the injured list after just two starts due to a flexor strain but resumed playing catch earlier this month. Once he’s healthy, he’ll also be a rotation option.

The presence of Patrick, Henderson, Misiorowski, Priester, the already-optioned Tobias Myers and lefty Robert Gasser — on the mend from last year’s Tommy John surgery — is of extra importance with each of Woodruff, Quintana, Civale and Cortes reaching free agency at season’s end. (Quintana and Woodruff have mutual options, but it’s been more than a decade since any mutual option in all of MLB was exercised by both team and player.) It also gives the Milwaukee front office plenty of paths to consider at this year’s trade deadline. They could deal from their collection of established veterans in an effort to bring in some infield help and potentially backfill the rotation via in-house arms.

In all likelihood, there will be innings available for the entire contingent of young arms over the final two-thirds of the season. Regardless, they’ll all be in consideration for full-fledged rotation spots come 2026. That likely reliance on this group of young arms only makes it more understandable if the Brewers want to avoid burning the final option years on pitchers like Priester, Ashby and Hall, as that flexibility might be of greater utility next year when working with a younger staff.

Red Sox Acquire John Holobetz As PTBNL In Quinn Priester Trade

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The Red Sox announced Monday that they’ve acquired right-hander John Holobetz from the Brewers as the player to be named later in last month’s trade that sent righty Quinn Priester from Boston to Milwaukee.

Holobetz, 22, was the Brewers’ fifth-round pick in the draft just last summer. The Old Dominion product didn’t pitch in 2024 following the draft but is out to a terrific start in 2025. He’s pitched 24 innings across five appearances in A-ball, logging a flat 3.00 ERA on 16 hits and five walks with 31 strikeouts. Holobetz has fanned 31.3% of his opponents and issued walks at just a 5.1% clip.

It’s a nice start to his pro career, but as a former college pitcher starting out in A-ball, Holobetz hasn’t yet been challenged by older and more advanced competition. How he fares in eventual moves up the ladder will be telling. The 6’3″ righty wasn’t ranked among Milwaukee’s best prospects heading into the season. He worked primarily as a reliever in college, but the Brewers have given him longer stints so far in pro ball.

Holobetz joins outfielder Yophery Rodriguez as one of two players the Red Sox acquired in exchange for Priester. Milwaukee also sent its Competitive Balance (Round A) draft selection to Boston in exchange for Priester, whom the Red Sox acquired ahead of the 2024 trade deadline in a swap sending former first-rounder Nick Yorke to Pittsburgh. Rodriguez has appeared in 19 games with the Red Sox’ High-A club and turned in a .224/.402/.418 batting line with more walks (21.8%) than strikeouts (17.2%) in 87 plate appearances.

For much of the season so far, Priester has been more or less what a Brewers team that was desperate for starting pitching had hoped. He’s been a serviceable back-end starter capable of providing five-inning efforts that keep the Brew Crew in the game. His ERA exploded to 5.79 when the Cubs clobbered him for seven runs yesterday, but Priester had worked to a 3.79 ERA through his first four turns.

Overall, it’s not an appealing set of numbers, though. The 5.79 ERA — inflated by one particularly poor start or not — is accompanied by ugly strikeout and walk rates of 15.7% and 14.8%, respectively. Priester has walked at least three batters in each of his past four starts. He’s posted an excellent 56.8% ground-ball rate, but that’s a small consolation when juxtaposed with the lack of missed bats and worrying command issues.

That said, the Brewers have control of Priester for the next six seasons, and he still has a minor league option remaining. He’s a former first-round pick and top prospect who’s still only 24 years old, and he has a solid minor league track record. The Brewers will hope as the season goes on that he can refine that command and cement himself as a reliable member of the staff. They’ve shuffled up his pitch mix a bit, adding a new cutter that sits just over 92 mph to complement his sinker-focused approach. That pitch has been hit quite hard so far, so it’s not clear he’ll stick with the offering.

For now, Priester remains set in a rotation alongside Freddy Peralta, Jose Quintana, Tobias Myers and Chad Patrick. Milwaukee has pitchers Brandon Woodruff, Nestor Cortes, Aaron Civale, Aaron Ashby, DL Hall and Robert Gasser all on the mend from injury, but only Woodruff is close to a return at the moment.

MLBTR Podcast: Vlad’s Massive Deal, Extensions for Merrill and Marte, And Quinn Priester Traded

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

Check out our past episodes!

  • Garrett Crochet’s Extension, Problems In Atlanta, And Other Early-Season Storylines – listen here
  • What We Learned From The Offseason – listen here
  • The Rays’ Stadium Deal Is Dead, Rangers’ Rotation Issues, And More! – listen here

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro, Imagn Images

Brewers Acquire Quinn Priester

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The Brewers and Red Sox have announced a trade sending right-hander Quinn Priester from Boston to Milwaukee. In return, the Sox receive prospect Yophery Rodriguez, a Competitive Balance Round A draft pick in this year’s draft and a player to be named later or cash considerations.  Milwaukee cleared a roster spot by designating left-hander Grant Wolfram for assignment and subsequently dealing him to the Orioles.

Priester, 24, is a former first-round pick and notable prospect. The Pirates took him 18th overall in 2019. As he climbed the minor league ladder, he was considered one of the top young players in the league. Baseball America ranked him the #58 prospect in baseball in 2022 and #88 in 2023. He was flipped to Boston at last summer’s deadline, a straight one-for-one swap which sent Nick Yorke the other way.

Despite his pedigree, he hasn’t broken through at the major league level yet. Between the Pirates and Red Sox, he has 99 2/3 innings pitched in the big leagues with a 6.23 earned run average. His 15.2% strikeout rate is well below par and his 9% walk rate is close to average, though his 55.2% ground ball rate is quite strong.

The minor league work has been stronger. He has thrown 184 Triple-A innings since the start of 2023 to the present. His 4.16 ERA isn’t especially impressive but he underlying numbers are better. He has a 25.8% strikeout rate in that sample and an 8.5% walk rate. He’s kept more than half of balls in play on the ground. His .318 batting average on balls in play and 66.9% strand rate are both on the unfortunate side, which is why his 3.44 FIP looks far more palatable than his ERA.

The Brewers have a strong reputation for working with pitchers, having helped many to reach their full potentials. Given Priester’s background and intriguing minor league numbers, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him take notable steps forward in Milwaukee. He has less than a year of service time, so there will be long-term benefits if they can help him out.

On the other hand, it also seems like a hefty price to pay and a reflection of the current pitching predicament in Milwaukee. They currently have seven starting pitchers on the injured list, some of them unlikely to return in the short term. Brandon Woodruff missed the entire 2024 surgery recovering from shoulder surgery and is still working his way back. Robert Gasser had Tommy John surgery in June and won’t be available in the first half. DL Hall has a strained lat and is also on the 60-day injured list alongside Gasser, meaning he’s not close to a return. Tobias Myers and Aaron Ashby are both on the shelf with oblique strains. Aaron Civale has a hamstring strain. Nestor Cortes landed on the IL yesterday with a flexor strain.

That all leaves Freddy Peralta as the only healthy member of the club’s projected rotation. To patch together a staff around him, the club has had to reach deep into its alternatives. Tyler Alexander was to start the season in a swing role but has moved way up the chart. Elvin Rodríguez was pitching in Japan last year, mostly in relief. He signed with the Brewers in the winter but has options and was slated to start the season in the minors before the injuries. Chad Patrick just got added to the 40-man in November and was also projected for the Triple-A rotation until the bodies kept dropping.

As the injuries were piling up in the spring, the Brewers signed Jose Quintana, though he hasn’t been able to help them yet. Due to his late start, he agreed to be optioned in order to effectively do a delayed spring training and is still getting built up. Priester could jump right into the big league rotation this week, as his last outing was throwing four Triple-A innings on April 7th. He has one option year left, so he could be sent to the minors if other pitchers get healthy in the coming months and he gets pushed down the pecking order.

Getting immediate rotation help on the trade block is usually difficult at this time of year. Most clubs still think they have a shot at competing, especially in the age of expanded playoffs, and likely want to keep a robust stable of arms on hand. The high rate of pitching injuries in the modern game only enhances the need, as teams know they will need far more than five starters to get through a season.

But the Red Sox seemingly need Priester far less than they did when they acquired him. In the offseason, they made a few notable additions to the rotation mix. They acquired Garrett Crochet from the White Sox and signed Walker Buehler. They also signed Patrick Sandoval, though he’s recovering from UCL surgery and is still a few months away from joining their rotation.

The Sox had to start 2025 with Brayan Bello, Lucas Giolito and Kutter Crawford on the injured list, but that wasn’t enough to get Priester to the big leagues. They started the season with Crochet, Buehler, Tanner Houck, Richard Fitts and Sean Newcomb in the rotation. Cooper Criswell and Hunter Dobbins are also on the 40-man roster and capable of working in long relief roles or in the Triple-A rotation.

Both Bello and Giolito are on rehab assignments and should be with the big league club in the next week or two. They should slot in next two Crochet, Buehler and Houck. Dobbins is already back in Triple-A after serving as the 27th man in yesterday’s double-header. If the Sox want to keep Newcomb, they could move him to the bullpen while optioning Fitts and Criswell. As mentioned, Sandoval could be in the mix later in the year.

That’s a fairly healthy amount of rotation depth even without Priester in it, which seemingly allowed the Sox to feel comfortable moving on, even with the risk that further injuries throughout the season could cut into that depth.

As mentioned, most clubs aren’t very willing to part with notable starting depth this early in the season, so the Brewers have paid up to get some from Boston. The draft pick the Sox receive will be the 33rd overall selection this summer. That comes with a slot value of around $2.77MM, per Carlos Collazo of Baseball America. That’s a pretty nice chance to add some young talent to the system in a few months.

They are also adding young talent to the system today, getting Rodriguez and perhaps another player later. As for Rodriguez, he was a noteworthy international signing out of the Dominic Republic, with the Brewers giving him a $1.5MM signing bonus. He has played 165 professional games thus far between the Dominican Summer League, Single-A and High-A. He has a combined batting line of .254/.361/.408 in that time.

Baseball America ranked him Milwaukee’s #14 prospect coming into the year. They note that he’s likely to be moved off center field into a corner over time, which will put more pressure on his bat to carry the profile.

Still, from the Sox perspective, it looks like a nice bit of business. Priester didn’t appear to be in their short-term plans. He was on pace to be out of options next year and may have been on track to getting squeezed off the roster. By pulling the trigger today, they have subtracted a depth piece but added some notable future talent.

For the Brewers, despite all their injuries, they’re hanging in the race with a 5-5 record. Priester can hopefully help them stay afloat and has some future ceiling, given his past pedigree. If he clicks, he can be a long-term solution for them as well. Cortes, Civale, Woodruff, Alexander and Quintana are slated for free agency after this year. Peralta has a club option for 2026 but will be a free agent after that.

Wolfram, 28, was a somewhat surprising signing in the winter. He had previously spent his career in the minors with the Rangers, but reached free agency after 2024. The Brewers gave him a 40-man spot in December, though he’s still looking for his major league debut. He was called up yesterday when Cortes landed on the IL but optioned back down after the game.

The Brewers will now have a week of DFA limbo to figure out what’s next for him. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so any trade interest would need to be gauged in the next five days. Perhaps some club could be interested based on his minor league work, which is presumably what caught the eye of the Brewers. In the years since the minors were cancelled in 2020, Wolfram has thrown 249 minor league innings with a 3.94 ERA. He has a high 12.2% walk rate in that time but has also punched out 29.6% of opponents.

Hunter Noll of Beyond the Monster and BoSox Injection first reported the terms of the trade.

Photos courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, John E. Sokolowski and William Glasheen, Imagn Images

Red Sox Notes: Houck, Newcomb, Fulmer, Chapman

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The Red Sox haven’t approached right-hander Tanner Houck about a contract extension this spring, Houck himself tells Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe. The 28-year-old adds that he’s open to such talks and would be happy to stay in Boston long-term — “I love it here” — but isn’t concerning himself with the lack of extension talks at present.

Houck reached arbitration for the first time this offseason and agreed on a $3.95MM salary to avoid a hearing. That contract came on the back of a breakout 2024 season wherein he pitched a career-high 178 2/3 innings with a 3.12 ERA, 20.7% strikeout rate, 6.5% walk rate, 55.9% grounder rate and 0.55 HR/9 over the life of 30 starts. After having floated between the bullpen in rotation in recent seasons, that career-best performance cemented Houck’s spot in Boston’s rotation.

Injuries to Kutter Crawford, Brayan Bello and Lucas Giolito only further locked Houck into a prominent rotation role. He’ll likely take the ball in the Red Sox’ second game, behind Opening Day starter Garrett Crochet. The rest of the rotation looks a bit different than most would’ve expected heading into camp. Free-agent signee Walker Buehler is locked into a spot, but there’s been a competition for the final two outings that’s taken place as health troubles have arisen.

Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic wrote earlier in the week that right-hander Richard Fitts looked to have the fourth spot in the rotation locked up. The 25-year-old Fitts, acquired from the Yankees in the trade sending Alex Verdugo to the Bronx, has allowed only one run in 10 2/3 official spring innings. He’s punched out 13 of his 31 opponents (31.7%) against four walks (9.8%). Fitts posted a 4.17 ERA, 22.6% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate in 116 2/3 Triple-A innings last year and also made a brief MLB debut, pitching 20 2/3 frames with a 1.74 ERA (in spite of a paltry 10.6% strikeout rate in the majors).

More surprisingly, McCaffrey listed veteran Sean Newcomb as a strong candidate to earn the fifth spot. MassLive.com’s Christopher Smith suggests the same, writing that manager Alex Cora said the veteran lefty has “caught our eyes” with an impressive spring of his own. Newcomb, a Massachusetts native, has held opponents to one run on five hits and three walks with 10 strikeouts in 9 2/3 innings. Unlike many veterans around the league on non-roster invitations, Newcomb does not have an opt-out in his contract before the end of camp, Smith notes, so the Sox don’t need to worry about losing him if they opt for someone already on the 40-man roster, such as righty Quinn Priester.

Similarly, veteran reliever Michael Fulmer tells WEEI’s Rob Bradford that his minor league deal with Boston does not have an opt-out opportunity. The former AL Rookie of the Year signed a two-year minor league deal with the Sox in the 2023-24 offseason as he rehabbed from a UCL revision performed in Oct. 2023.

Fulmer didn’t pitch last year while rehabbing that procedure, but the 32-year-old has been outstanding this spring. He’s tossed 9 1/3 innings and held opponents to one run on nine hits and three walks with nine strikeouts. The fact that he can’t opt out is a bit of a strike against his Opening Day chances, particularly if the Sox want to carry a long reliever to support their diminished rotation, but Fulmer has put himself in a nice position to either break camp with the team or get an early-season look.

At the other end of the bullpen, Boston’s ninth-inning picture has been a question for much of the spring. The hope was surely that Liam Hendriks would look closer to vintage form and claim that role as he enters the second season of a two-year contract, but it’s lefty Aroldis Chapman who’s emerged as the favorite for ninth-inning work, Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com writes. Chapman has impressed the Sox with the quality of his raw stuff and has set down 10 of his 23 spring opponents on strikes. Hendriks has been tagged for six runs in five spring frames. Righty Justin Slaten also appears to be ahead of Hendriks on the closer depth chart — at least for the time being.

Certainly, that’s subject to change as the season wears on. Changes in the ninth inning are common, particularly when the frontrunner is a 37-year-old with persistent command issues and a recent injury history of note. Hendriks, Slaten or someone else entirely could wind up handling the bulk of the ninth-inning workload for skipper Alex Cora, but it sounds like Chapman will get first crack, thereby giving him a chance to become just the 14th pitcher in MLB history to tally 350 saves. He currently ranks 16th all-time, sitting just six saves behind Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers.

Quinn Priester Likely To Make Red Sox Debut Tomorrow

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Right-hander Quinn Priester is expected to make his debut with the big league Red Sox tomorrow, according to a report from MassLive’s Christopher Smith. Smith notes that Priester is currently with the club’s taxi squad and could be promoted to the majors to start tomorrow’s season finale against the Rays.

Priester, 24, was acquired from the Pirates ahead of the trade deadline in exchange for infield prospect Nick Yorke. The pair of youngsters were in similar places in their careers as former top-100 prospects whose stars had lost a bit of shine in recent years but were knocking on the door of the big leagues. Priester already had 94 2/3 innings of work under his belt with Pittsburgh in the majors, while Yorke had not yet made his big league debut but had raked in 38 games at the Triple-A level with a promotion appearing to be imminent.

Since then, Yorke has made that debut with the Pirates and gone 7-for-31 with a home run, two steals, and two walks in his first nine-games as a big league hitter. Now Priester appears poised to make his own first appearance with his new club in the majors, with Alex Cora suggesting to reporters today that there’s “a good chance” he’ll make tomorrow’s start. In debuting with the Red Sox, Priester figures to flash improved velocity relative to his time with the Pirates as Smith notes he averaged a full tick higher on his fastball in his start at Triple-A last week as compared to his velocity with the Pirates earlier this year.

The Red Sox are surely hoping that the mechanical fixes coaches have made to Priester’s delivery that resulted in that jump in velocity will also show in his results at the big league level heading into 2025. After all, the righty struggled to a 5.04 ERA (84 ERA+) with a 4.82 ERA in his 44 2/3 innings of work with Pittsburgh this year after putting up even worse numbers in the majors back in 2023. Fortunately, Priester has seemingly settled in with the Red Sox organization after a disastrous first start with the club’s Triple-A affiliate to the point where he’s putting up solid results, as evidenced by his 3.75 ERA and 26.2% strikeout rate in his last eight starts.

It would be an exciting development for Boston if Priester were to work his way into the club’s 2025 rotation plans. The club’s 3.77 ERA in the rotation is a top-5 figure in the majors this year thanks in larger part to a breakout year for right-hander Tanner Houck, but veteran hurler Nick Pivetta is slated to reach free agency this offseason and leave the Red Sox with just Houck, Kutter Crawford, and Brayan Bello in the rotation headed into next year. Lucas Giolito and Garrett Whitlock are both expected back from the injured list in 2025 after lost seasons in 2024, but it’s not yet clear whether either hurler will be ready for Opening Day, leaving the Red Sox to potentially lean on depth options like Cooper Criswell, Richard Fitts, and Priester early in the season if they don’t bolster the rotation in free agency.

Pirates, Red Sox Swap Quinn Priester For Nick Yorke

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The Red Sox and Pirates announced a one-for-one dealing sending right-hander Quinn Priester to Boston and second base prospect Nick Yorke to Pittsburgh. Boston already has a vacancy on their 40-man roster and optioned Priester to Triple-A Worcester. Pittsburgh assigned Yorke to their top affiliate in Indianapolis.

Priester, 23, has pitched in the majors in each of the past two seasons. He has started 16 of 20 appearances, struggling to a 6.46 ERA across 94 2/3 innings. His 15.4% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk percentage are each on the wrong side of league average, the strikeouts especially so. Preister has kept the ball on the ground at a robust 53.9% clip but seen an inordinate amount of the fly balls against him clear the fence. He’s allowing more than 1.8 home runs per nine innings.

While he hasn’t had the most auspicious start to his major league career, Priester isn’t far removed from being one of the top pitching prospects in the sport. The Bucs selected him 18th overall out of high school in the 2019 draft. By the 2020-21 offseason, he’d cracked most Top 100 prospect lists. Evaluators had particular praise for Priester’s curveball during his time in the minors, but he’s had a fairly balanced five-pitch mix (sinker, slider, four-seam, curveball, changeup) in the majors.

Some scouting reports had questions about the quality of Priester’s fastball — specifically whether he had enough movement to miss bats. His sinker and four-seam each sit around 93 MPH and have been hit hard by major league hitters. He’s had far more success in the minors, though. Priester owns a 3.81 ERA over parts of three Triple-A campaigns. That includes a 3.21 mark with 36 strikeouts and just seven walks over 33 2/3 innings this year.

Boston’s player development staff will try to help Priester translate his intriguing raw stuff and minor league production into better MLB results. They’ll have plenty of time to do so. The 6’3″ hurler is in his second of three option years. He has around 133 days of major league service. It’s possible he crosses the 172-day threshold to reach a full service year in 2024, but he’d still be under control for five seasons beyond this one. If the Sox send him down to Triple-A Worcester at any point, that could push his free agent timeline back and give Boston six full years of control.

Priester will begin his Sox tenure in the minors. Boston has Nick Pivetta, Brayan Bello, Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford and recent trade pickup James Paxton in their rotation. The Paxton acquisition nudged sixth starter Cooper Criswell back to relief. Priester probably slots seventh on the depth chart and can move up and down off the MLB roster as needed.

Pittsburgh has a fair bit of rotation depth themselves. Paul Skenes and Jared Jones had clearly surpassed Priester on the organizational hierarchy. Mitch Keller fits comfortably as their #3 arm. Luis Ortiz, Marco Gonzales and Martín Pérez are rounding out the starting five while Jones is shelved by a lat strain. The Bucs could soon welcome Bailey Falter back from the IL and bump Pérez from the rotation. As MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald explored in a post for Front Office subscribers a couple weeks ago, that enabled them to trade a starter for a controllable bat.

Yorke is on the doorstep of the majors. Boston’s first-round pick out of high school in the 2020 draft, he’s having a strong season in the high minors. Yorke hit .251/.325/.366 over 45 Double-A contests and has been particularly impressive since a promotion to Triple-A. Over 38 games for the Sox’s affiliate in Worcester, he turned in a .310/.408/.490 slash with six homers and nearly as many walks (14.2%) as strikeouts (18.9%).

The 22-year-old Yorke has played mostly second base in his professional career. He has a bit of experience in left field as well. The Bucs are presumably planning to use him at the former position. Pittsburgh hasn’t gotten much out of second base all season. Nick Gonzales, whom Pittsburgh took 10 picks ahead of Yorke in the 2020 draft, faded offensively after a hot start. He went on the injured list yesterday with a groin strain that’ll cost him at least a few weeks. That had seemed to push Jared Triolo or Alika Williams into short-term action.

Yorke, despite having no MLB experience, might already be a better hitter than either Triolo or Williams. He’ won’t directly join the MLB roster but could be up before too long. They’ll need to put him on their 40-man roster by next offseason at the latest to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft.

Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs ranked Yorke 13th among Red Sox prospects earlier this month. Baseball America had him 14th in the system on their most recent update. Both outlets praise his hitting feel but write that he doesn’t have great athleticism or defensive chops. He has a chance to be a bat-first regular at the keystone who could make an impact down the stretch. While Yorke isn’t generally viewed as having the highest upside, there’d be ample value in a near-MLB regular whom the Bucs control for the next six-plus seasons.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported the Red Sox and Pirates were finalizing a trade swapping Yorke for Priester. Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Pirates Could Add To Offense By Dealing From Pitching Depth

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The Pirates are scouring the trade market for ways to improve their lineup, and given the lack of pure sellers with available bats, one potential avenue the team has explored is trading from another area of its major league roster to augment the offense. General manager Ben Cherington discussed such a possibility on Sunday (link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), and he mentioned just today that the team has an abundance of pitching that could appeal to other clubs (also via Hiles).

Pittsburgh indeed has a deceptively deep collection of arms, as MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald explored last Wednesday in a piece for MLBTR Front Office subscribers. ESPN’s Jeff Passan suggests that a back-end starter such as Bailey Falter or perhaps a late-inning relievers like Aroldis Chapman or even Colin Holderman and David Bednar could be in play if the Bucs indeed want to use their collection of arms to add a bat. Alex Stumpf of MLB.com tweets that the Pirates have been willing to deal from the bullpen to improve the lineup but also adds that some of the team’s pitching prospects could come into play.

It goes without saying that Paul Skenes, Jared Jones and Mitch Keller don’t factor into this thinking. That excellent trio is the very foundation on which the Pirates’ staff will be built for the next several years. But the Buccos have plenty of affordable back-of-the-rotation options.

The Braves are covering all but $3MM of Marco Gonzales’ salary this season. He’s pitched to a 2.70 ERA with a 17.3% strikeout rate and 5.5% walk rate in 26 1/3 innings and has looked sharp since returning from a two-month IL stint owing to a muscle strain in his forearm. A team looking for an affordable fourth or fifth starter (e.g. Twins, Astros, Guardians) could be intrigued. Falter is currently on the injured list due to tendinitis in his triceps but should be back before long. He’s posted a 4.08 ERA in 17 starts (90 1/3 innings) while fanning 16.7% of his opponents against a 7.7% walk rate. He’s out of minor league options but controlled another four seasons beyond the 2024 campaign. Martin Perez tossed six shutout innings today but did so while issuing five walks and only lowered his ERA to 5.20 in the process. He’s earning $8MM, which makes it hard to see him bringing back a bat of note.

In terms of less-established options, the Pirates have names like Quinn Priester, Mike Burrows and Braxton Ashcraft to peddle. Priester has gotten some MLB experience, but the former top prospect has yet to establish himself as a core rotation piece. Burrows and Ashcraft haven’t yet debuted. The former only just returned from Tommy John surgery performed last April. He’s slowly moving up the minor league ladder on a rehab assignment. The latter has had a breakout season between Double-A and Triple-A.

The Pirates surely don’t want to deplete their stock of arms too greatly, but in an ideal world, top prospect Bubba Chandler will claim a rotation spot by 2025. At that point, there’s a notable glut of arms with only one rotation spot truly open. Even if Chandler needs more time or gets hurt, Pittsburgh would still have him, Priester, Falter, Ashcraft, Burrows, Luis Ortiz and Johan Oviedo (recovering from offseason Tommy John surgery) as long-term rotation options behind Skenes, Jones and Keller.

In the bullpen, Chapman is back to his excessively wild ways. He’s fanned a mammoth 36.6% of his opponents but also issued walks at a woeful 19.5% clip. To Chapman’s credit, he’s been better in that regard after a shaky April/May showing. Over the past two months, he’s sitting on a 3.43 ERA, 35.6% strikeout rate and 13.3% walk rate. That’s still too many free passes, but it’s more in line with some past marks from Chapman, who has frequently been able to overcome poor command because of his blistering velocity and knack for missing bats. Overall, Chapman sports a 3.93 ERA on the season. He’s being paid $10.5MM, and the Pirates still owe him about $3.72MM as of this writing. He’s a free agent at season’s end.

Both Bednar and especially Holderman would come with greater appeal. Bednar has long frequented the pages of MLBTR in past trade deadlines and offseasons. Clubs throughout the league have targeted the Pittsburgh-area native since he established himself with his hometown club, but a deal has never come together. Now, Bednar is struggling through a career-worst season, with a 4.98 ERA in 34 1/3 innings. The shaky ERA seems tied largely to a spike in homer-to-flyball rate; from 2021-23, only 6.6% of Bednar’s fly balls became homers. This year, he’s nearly doubled that, sitting at 12.2%. Bednar is also allowing more fly balls than ever (50%), making the timing of that spike most unwelcome.

Still, there’s plenty of track record with Bednar, who from ’21-’23 posted a 2.25 ERA with 61 saves and elite strikeout and walk rates. He’s earning $4.51MM this season and is controllable through the 2026 campaign.

The 28-year-old Holderman would be difficult to trade. He’s not yet arbitration-eligible, though he will be this season as a Super Two player. Holderman is controlled four more years, all the way through 2028, and has delivered 36 2/3 innings of 1.72 ERA ball this season, fanning 28.8% of his opponents against a 10.9% walk rate. Moving on from a controllable leverage reliever of that ilk isn’t easy, though the Bucs could consider it a nifty piece of business to acquire Holderman from the Mets in exchange for Daniel Vogelbach (back in 2022) and then trade him for a more impactful bat just two years later. And with so many arms in the system behind Skenes, Keller and Jones, some of those in-house options are going to wind up in the bullpen.

Trades of Holderman and Bednar seem like a long shot, particularly since the latter would be selling low on a popular hometown All-Star. That said, the Bucs do have a large stock of arms from which to deal. Moving an established reliever/starter for a bat could open the door for any number of young, promising in-house replacements, while a more conventional swap might simply see them trade some of those prospects for immediate offensive help — ideally a bat controlled for multiple years beyond the current season.

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