The Milwaukee Brewers have been adamant about rehabbing Quinn Priester through what started as a wrist injury and has since been diagnosed as thoracic outlet syndrome. They have remained consistent that getting the feel for pitches again is going to take time and that they need to be patient and he just needs to “keep pitching” in the words of Pat Murphy.
But at some point, when it becomes clear that Priester is not making any progress and is not getting any better, the decision has to be made to pull the plug. The Brewers need to strongly consider the possibility that they have reached that point.
Quinn Priester made his sixth rehab start on Wednesday night for the Nashville Sounds. He was scheduled to go five innings and 80-85 pitches. Instead, Priester recorded just two outs, allowing three walks and three runs on 38 pitches with 18 of them for strikes.
It’s not even the game results, the earned runs, or anything like that. It’s the fact that Priester cannot throw strikes; he does not seem to know where the baseball is going when he releases it, and at no point through these six starts has it appeared he’s really made any progress in this direction. Even if it will take time to gain that feel back, you would think after six starts there would at least be some progress, but that hasn’t been the case.
In these six starts, Priester has only made it through 10 innings. That may sound hard to believe, but it’s true. In basically all of his outings, he has fallen well short of the amount of innings he was scheduled to pitch, either due to a high pitch count or just sheer ineffectiveness. The farthest he’s made it into a game is three innings. He has walked more batters than he’s struck out in all six of his starts. He’s walked at least three batters in five of his six starts. And in that one start he didn’t, he walked two batters over two innings.
The Quinn Priester that the Brewers got used to seeing last season is not there right now and it’s difficult not to place the blame on the TOS he’s dealing with. No pitcher in history with this injury has successfully rehabbed TOS without resorting to surgery. The Brewers are attempting to make Priester the first one, but this attempt appears ill-fated and is only looking worse the longer it goes on.
Plus, the longer surgery is postponed, the longer his return to the mound could be postponed. If Priester and the Brewers wait too much longer to opt for surgery, they’re risking him not being ready to return to the mound to start spring training in 2027.
Thoracic outlet surgery typically requires a nine-month recovery process to return to game action. If they get the surgery in the beginning of June, nine months later would be February 2027, right when spring training is slated to begin.
How much longer are the Brewers willing to wait out Priester, hoping he’ll regain his feel for his pitches and be useful for them down the stretch? How many starts are enough to see that even minimal progress isn’t being made?
The good news for the Brewers is they aren’t exactly in desperate need of him in their rotation. Jacob Misiorowski and Kyle Harrison have emerged as a dominant 1-2 punch. Brandon Sproat has shown flashes of his potential, as has Logan Henderson prior to his IL placement. Coleman Crow has been excellent in spot duty and should get a little longer run. Brandon Woodruff is on his way back. They have the depth to withstand the loss of Priester for the season.
They gave it a shot to keep Priester’s 2026 season alive, and I’ll commend them for that. But at a certain point, you just have to cut your losses, shut him down, recommend the surgery, and get Priester ready for 2027.