Edgar Quero: White Sox 2024 Minor League Player Of The Year
Catcher is the most complex position in the sport, but 21-year-old backstop Edgar Quero tends to place things in simple terms.
“I was a little fat,” said Quero, who trimmed his playing weight from 225 to 208 pounds last offseason. “I feel quicker this year, especially with my hips.”
Quero argues that better mobility has improved his defensive play. But with his slimmer form, he and the White Sox have worked to narrow his leg base in his batting stance.
In turn, Quero’s loading action in his lower half has switched from a big rock back with his hips, to coiling on his back leg, triggered by a small lift of his front foot.
That contributed to a .280/.366/.463 batting line with 16 home runs in 98 games at Double-A Birmingham and Triple-A Charlotte this season.
Charlotte hitting coach Cameron Seitzer feels that Quero’s movement is shorter and quicker, which has the switch-hitter meeting pitches out front more, equaling more balls in the air and more damage.
“His line-drive approach, his line-drive move to the ball has not changed,” Seitzer said. “His base has just allowed him to get to the contact point quicker, which is making him move his contact point out forward, which is improving that ball flight.”
Quero is a bat-first prospect, and his bat is looking good enough to carry him above troubles controlling the running game.
But with blocking and game-planning good enough to project him to stick behind the plate, the most frequent compliment given to Quero’s defense is his passion for improving it.
“He’s not going to tell you that he’s had a good year,” White Sox farm director Paul Janish said. “He’s going to tell you some of the things he needs to continue to work on to get better.”
More likely, Quero will just keep things simple.
“This is what I expected,” Quero said of a season that had him under consideration for a major league callup until he was sidelined by back tightness from mid August to late September.
“I mean, I can do a little bit better.”
