During 2020 Major League Baseball Draft week, we visited once again with Quinn Priester, the first high school pitcher to be selected in the 2019 MLB Draft. The Pittsburgh Pirates selected the Glendale Heights, Illinois native with the 18th overall pick.
Quinn Priester, who agreed to a $3.4 million signing bonus, began his professional career on the lowest rung on the North American minor league baseball ladder, in the Gulf Coast League. GCL teams play at the minor league spring training complexes of their parent clubs, so Priester spent most of the ’19 season in Bradenton, Florida.
“It wasn’t most glamorous thing in the world, but I got a lot better,” Priester said in an exclusive interview (which will run in three parts), so I felt really really good about my time in the GCL.”
“I was still in that honeymoon phase where everything I did was just the coolest thing, and I’m still kind of living that right now.”
The first thing Priester said about the GCL, which resides at the Rookie level of MiLB, is just how hot it was all time. The cold weather pitcher adjusted very well to the heat however, going 1-1 with a 3.03 ERA in seven starts and one relief appearances.
The Cary-Grove High School graduate immediately showed why he’s such a promising prospect, putting up a 1.194 WHIP for the Pirates (all GCL teams are named after their parent clubs), to go along with 37 strikeouts and just 10 walks in 32.2 innings pitched.
He was quickly promoted to the West Virginia Black Bears, who reside in at the short A ball, or low A ball level. The Black Bears, located in Granville, WV, are in the New York-Penn League.
Priester says it was a totally different ballgame, as his eyes were really opened by the chance to pitch against the State College Spikes, the St. Louis Cardinals affiliate.
He made one start, allowing three runs, two earned, on three hits in four innings. He walked and struck out four.
“I had never pitched in front of that many people, it was just a blast,” the 2019 Illinois Prep Baseball Player of the Year said.
“That game in particular makes me itch and itch and itch to go back, every single day I just kind of dream about getting back on the mound, and even without fans, hopefully they can watch from home and all that good stuff- man I miss it.”
Priester, like the rest of us, hopes that we’ll have baseball in 2020. He says that he doesn’t follow current the stand-off between the MLBPA and the owners too much (can’t blame him, it’s not a fun story to follow), but he did offer this comment on the situation:
“I hope it gets done, but I know that the players will make the best decision for themselves and in turn what they feel is safe and fair for them, whatever that is, and as teammates I will support them.”
The Pirates are considered one of the best organizations in baseball, right now, for development.
We asked him what impresses him, most of all, about the entire organization.
“I got to learn from a bunch of great coaches,” he responded.
“I really like the ability they give the players to kind of choose your own destiny, they put it all into your hands- giving you all the resources you could want from the mental side, the nutrition side, obviously the baseball development side.”
“They really put it all there for you so, if you’re a guy who wants to go and take it, you do.”
“So for me it’s made it very easy to find the guys who go and to take it and get around those guys, because we’re going to make each other better.”
Part two of the Quinn Priester exclusive, focusing on the fundamentals he’s working on, can be found here. Part three, focusing on some of his MLB role models, will run at Sports Illustrated later this week. For last year’s exclusive, go here.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for Chicago Tribune.com, on Twitter and his cat on Instagram.