LAS VEGAS -- The Pirates announced their final two minor-league award winners Thursday. And if you have been paying attention to the farm system this winter, you can probably guess who they chose as the top hitter and pitcher.
Endy Rodriguez, who rose from starting in A-ball to finish Class AAA this season and emerge as a top 100 prospect, was named the organization's Honus Wagner Play of the Year. Quinn Priester, who started the year on the injured list but finished with arguably his best season in pro ball, was named the Bob Friend Pitcher of the Year.
Rodriguez, 22, tore up every level of pitching he faced this year, finishing with a combined .323 batting average with 25 home runs, 95 RBIs, 39 doubles and a .996 OPS. Perhaps just as valuable is he bounced all around the diamond this past season, playing bis natural catcher as well as first base, second and corner outfield.
"I actually feel fairly comfortable at a variety of positions," Rodriguez said over Zoom Thursday, as interpreted by Pirates director of communications Melissa Strozza. "I think that dates back to when I was younger. I had a manager here in the Dominican Republic who said to me, “Listen, you’re a pretty athletic guy. You should be open to going wherever you can be needed, whether that’s practicing or when you have the chance. Why don’t you stop and watch other people practicing at different positions and take from that what you can.” I think just going back to that, I always had that open mind to play different positions.
"I think if I had to say where I’m most valuable, it’s definitely catching. I think it just comes down to something simple as I don’t let the game speed up on me. I think the game can speed up on you and get complicated, but I think I’m very good at staying calm and staying in control."
Priester, 22, went 5-5 with a 3.29 ERA over 90 1/3 innings this past year, striking out 89 compared to just 30 walks. After leaning more heavily on three or four pitches in 2021, he opened up his repetoire to a five pitch pitcher again and saw positive results with it.
It was a season that took longer than expected to get started, as an oblique injury forced him to begin the year on the shelf. Rather than rush a return, Priester and the Pirates took the down time to do a deep dive into his mechanics, finding some stuff to clean up and help him be more repeatable, which translated to strong results.
"I’m proud," Priester said over Zoom Thursday. "We could have started this year as ‘We're starting this year hurt (so) we’re gonna build back slow and then just kind of get what we can from this year.’ But we set myself up in a position to jump out of the gates as soon as I did get started. The work we did at Pirate City was important for myself to hit the ground running. From that point on, there wasn't really a whole lot of like, ‘I need to get a ton of innings,’ because I didn't really know how many I was going to be able to get. So it was just, 'Hey, let's see if we can go seven innings every game and let's see what happens.’ I'm proud of the work that we have done, given the cards we were dealt at the beginning of the year."
It's reasonable to assume both players will make the jump to the majors in 2023 after reaching Indianapolis at the end of this season. So what should Pirate fans look forward to with them in the fold?
"You can expect a lot of celebration," Rodriguez answered.