White Sox to promote notable catching prospect

The White Sox intend to promote catching prospect Edgar Quero, reports Francys Romero. He’s expected to join the team for Thursday's series finale against the A’s. It’ll be the first major league call for the 22-year-old. Quero is not on the 40-man roster, so there’ll be a forthcoming move in that regard.

Quero, a native of Cuba, signed with the Angels in February 2021. He quickly impressed prospect evaluators as an advanced switch-hitting catcher. He’d gotten to Double-A at age 20 before the Halos sent him to the White Sox alongside lefty Ky Bush for Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López at the 2023 deadline. The Angels regretted that push very quickly, as they fell firmly out of contention and wound up waiving Giolito and López a month later to shed their salaries.

It was a nice return for the White Sox. Quero has ranked in the latter half of Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects for each of the past three years. BA placed him sixth in the Chicago farm system this winter. That came on the heels of a strong .280/.366/.463 slash line with 16 home runs between the top two minor league levels. He kept his strikeout rate around 17% while drawing walks at a solid 9.7% clip.

Evaluators credit Quero with solid grades across the board (aside from the below-average speed expected of a catcher). He’s more of a bat-first player, drawing particular praise for his hit tool. BA writes that he has an average arm and has continued to improve his receiving skills, though, so there’s not much doubt that he can stay behind the plate.

At the time of the Giolito trade, Quero looked to be Chicago’s catcher of the future. That’s no longer a given, albeit for reasons beyond his control. The White Sox built the Garrett Crochet deal around former first-round pick Kyle Teel. Teel is generally viewed as the superior prospect, though it’s Quero who earns the major league call first.

The two highly-regarded young catchers have split the playing time at Triple-A Charlotte. Quero has had the much better start to the season. He’s hitting .333/.444/.412 with 11 walks and 14 strikeouts over 63 plate appearances. Teel has fanned 19 times and is batting .192 in a similar amount of playing time.

Matt Thaiss and Korey Lee began the season as Will Venable’s catching tandem. The Sox lost Lee to an ankle sprain last week. They initially brought up veteran Omar Narváez from Double-A rather than promote Quero or Teel. They’ll reverse course now with Quero, who should play fairly regularly.

It’s no longer possible for a player to accrue the 172 days on an MLB roster necessary to get a full year of service. Quero was a preseason top 100 prospect at each of Baseball America, ESPN and MLB Pipeline, so he would qualify for the Prospect Promotion Incentive. That means he could earn a full service year if he finished in the top two in AL Rookie of the Year balloting. The White Sox would not receive a bonus draft choice if that happens because they didn’t promote Quero early enough to spend 172 days in the majors.