This Quinn Priester-Paul Skenes stat will make Pirates fans nauseous

The Pittsburgh Pirates' infuriating inability to build a competitive team around ace Paul Skenes reached a new boiling point when the Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Los Angeles Angels on Thursday.

Allow me to explain.

Jayson Stark of The Athletic posted a stat on X Friday morning that is sure to make Pirates fans' hair stand on end. Quinn Preister – who started on the mound in Thursday's game – has made 28 starts for the Brewers this season, and Milwaukee has won the last 16 of them. Meanwhile, the Pirates have only won 16 of Skenes' 31 starts all season (and certainly not in a row).

For context, the Pirates traded Priester to the Boston Red Sox for Nick Yorke in a one-for-one swap at last year's trade deadline. The Red Sox then flipped him to the Brewers at the beginning of the 2025 season.

Yes, Pittsburgh's pitching depth made Priester expendable. But watching him break out in Milwaukee while the Pirates finish yet another season at the bottom of the NL Central – despite having Skenes on their roster – makes the trade sting even more.

Pirates' failure to build around Paul Skenes highlighted by Quinn Priester's success in Milwaukee

Priester was a 2019 first-round pick and one of the faces of the Ben Cherington-era farm rebuild. Now, he's simply a development investment for Pittsburgh. The Pirates stuck with him through early struggles, tweaked his pitch mix, and absorbed the growing pains – only to give up on him right before he turned the corner. Now, the Brewers are reaping the rewards of all that developmental work.

The Pirates misread Priester’s trajectory, believing his ceiling was limited to a back-end starter, but the Brewers saw upside the Pirates didn’t. Unless the Pirates got a clear long-term upgrade in the deal (which, so far, doesn’t look like the case), they essentially sold low on Priester while simultaneously failing to maximize Skenes by surrounding him with strong offensive talent.

The trade feeds the narrative that the Pirates don’t maximize talent – they either hold onto players for too long, or move them just before they break out elsewhere. Seeing Priester succeed in Milwaukee reinforces fan frustration that Pittsburgh can’t turn its own prospects into stars the way division rivals can.

Trading Priester looks bad not only because he’s excelling for the Brewers, but because it highlights flaws in the Pirates’ player evaluation, development patience and long-term planning. It’s the kind of misstep that keeps a rebuilding team stuck in neutral – even while they have a generational talent on their roster.