Brewers' Pat Murphy Loves That He Was Wrong About Quinn Priester

Milwaukee Brewers right-hander Quinn Priester impressed everyone on Saturday.

That includes Brewers manager Pat Murphy, which is a notable achievement given how Murphy initially evaluated Priester when Milwaukee acquired the 24-year-old from the Boston Red Sox on April 7.

Priester was dealing like an ace on Saturday versus the Colorado Rockies, striking out 11 and allowing just one hit in seven innings. It was Priester’s best start in a Brewers uniform and probably his best showing as a Major League pitcher in general.

Following the masterful performance (a 5-0 win for the Brewers, by the way), Murphy talked at length about Priester, crediting Milwaukee’s front office for identifying Priester as a valuable asset and believing in him (per MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy):

“I’ve said this 100 times and I’ll say it again: [GM] Matt Arnold and our front office predicted that this was the guy,” Murphy said.

According to McCalvy, Murphy has completely changed his tune on Priester in the time since the Brewers acquired him.

“Murphy remembered Priester from Pittsburgh, where he was the 18th overall pick in the 2019 MLB Draft,” McCalvy wrote. “But the skipper watched Priester’s Brewers debut against the Rockies in Denver on April 10 with fresh eyes, and let’s just say he saw room for improvement.”

Initially, Murphy saw Priester as a “project” who should continue developing in Triple-A (per McCalvy):

“I’m like, ‘Ugh, this is a project’ … My decision would have been to let him go to Triple-A and work this stuff out,” Murphy said.

But despite Murphy’s doubts, Priester has delivered, and Murphy was completey willing to give Priester his flowers on Saturday, even if it made the reigning National League Manager of the Year look wrong in his initial evaluation.

“I credit the kid more than anyone, but our pitching staff -- our pitching coaches and the players on the staff -- have embraced this guy and allowed him to grow,” Murphy said, per McCalvy. “Now you see his confidence. He’s done it here at the big league level. He’s got a ways to go, [but] the way things are trending right now, you watch that performance today and I don’t care who it’s against, he attacked the zone and it was a great performance.”

After a magical day for the young righty, Priester now has a 3.35 ERA with Milwaukee.