Fastball

Pittsburgh Pirates Get Highly-Regarded Prospect in Trade with Boston Red Sox

The Pittsburgh Pirates have acquired a top prospect from the Boston Red Sox in exchange for a former top prospect.

Brady Farkas

Greenville Drive's Nick Yorke fields a ball during practice at Fluor Field on Wednesday
Greenville Drive's Nick Yorke fields a ball during practice at Fluor Field on Wednesday / JOSH MORGAN/The Greenville News / USA
In this story:

The Pittsburgh Pirates have acquired top prospect Nick Yorke in a trade with the Boston Red Sox on Monday. In exchange, the Pirates have given up former top prospect Quinn Priester.

Jeff Passan of ESPN had the report on social media:

Trade news: The Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates are finalizing a deal that will send right-handed starter Quinn Priester to Boston and infield prospect Nick Yorke to Pitttsburgh, sources tell ESPN.

Yorke was a first-round selection of the Red Sox in the 2020 COVID-year draft and is hitting .278 this season between Double-A Portland and Triple-A Worcester.

He has 10 home runs this season with 46 RBI. He's 22 years old. He had been ranked the No. 6 prospect in the Red Sox organization, per MLB.com.

The following comes from a portion of his MLB.com prospect profile:

Yorke has the sweet right-handed swing and hand-eye coordination to hit for a high average, but he hasn't done so while tinkering with his setup and becoming much more pull-oriented the past two seasons. He's still barreling fastballs but scuffling against breaking balls and changeups. He has the bat speed and strength to produce 20 homers per season, though he now looks more like an everyday player than a potential star.

As for Priester, he is a former Pirates top prospect who has struggled in his short big league career. In 20 career appearances, he's 5-9 with a 6.46 ERA. He has thrown 94.2 big league innings and will be an interesting bounceback candidate for pitching coach Andrew Bailey to work with in Boston. He's under team control through 2029. He's 23 years old.

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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