CHICAGO — Fans chant “MVP! MVP! MVP!” when Carlos Quentin steps to the plate. They hold up signs with his head superimposed on Superman’s body and call him Q-perman.
Their man of steel is having quite a year.
The White Sox are contending for the AL Central division championship, and Quentin is a front-runner for the MVP award in his first season in Chicago.
Once a top prospect with Arizona, he is delivering after being limited by hamstring and shoulder injuries last year with the Diamondbacks. A first-time All-Star, Quentin was leading the American League with 36 home runs and fourth with 100 RBI while batting .288 going into Thursday’s games. He is in line to become the first White Sox player since Dick Allen in 1974 to lead the American League in home runs, and could become the franchise’s first player to lead the majors.
“The one thing I love about him is his work ethic,” manager Ozzie Guillen said. “He’s a workaholic. When you work hard, it pays off, and I don’t think this kid is a one-year thing. He has a chance to have a great career.”
It’s high praise for a guy who barely made the opening day roster.
White Sox fans yawned when general manager Kenny Williams traded infielder Chris Carter for Quentin in December, and the Diamondbacks faithful weren’t exactly in an uproar.
Quentin, who turned 26 last month, had his chances with Arizona, but looked lost at times after being called up from the minors in July 2006. Shoulder and hamstring injuries, a crowded outfield and a desire for more pitching made him expendable, even though parting with him wasn’t easy for general manager Josh Byrnes. He said the potential has been evident since Quentin was playing at University High School in San Diego and then Stanford.
“This has been going on for the better part of a decade,” Byrnes said.
He just didn’t blossom with the Diamondbacks.
Quentin batted .214 with five homers and 31 RBI in 81 games last year and was left off the playoff roster, an unceremonious end to a year in which injuries limited him to 81 games. He started last season on the 15-day disabled list with a left shoulder injury, returned to the DL in August with a strained right hamstring, and ultimately had surgery on his left shoulder in early October.
Had the Diamondbacks kept him, Quentin would have been vying for time in a crowded outfield with Justin Upton, Chris Young and Eric Byrnes. He also had an expiring contract, and Arizona was looking for pitching help.
To that end, they sent Carter to Oakland in the Dan Haren deal, which gave them a formidable one-two punch in the rotation with Brandon Webb.
“We’ve been pretty aggressive trading in trying to build a rotation,” Byrnes said. “When you make trades, some are difficult to do.”
The move is looking like one of the better ones by Williams, who also signed Rookie of the Year candidate Alexei Ramirez in the offseason.
Still recuperating from the shoulder injury, Quentin looked like the odd man out in the outfield until Jerry Owens went on the DL in late March with a partial tear in his right groin. That created an opening in left field, with Nick Swisher moving to center.
“You know what, when a guy has that kind of talent, sometimes it just clicks,” Boston Red Sox first baseman Sean Casey said. “Sometimes in this game when you get an opportunity you have to knock the door down; you can’t just be knocking on it. I think when he got the opportunity to play he knocked it down and hit some bombs. He really made his own opportunity and did everything he could to help himself out.”
That process began when Quentin was injured last season.
He studied his swing and decided to tweak it. He laid out the changes to hitting coach Greg Walker soon after the trade and implemented them in the spring.
Walker was concerned Quentin might “bingo around from one thing to another” but was mostly impressed that “once he locked on to what he believed in, he hasn’t moved off that spot.”
He called Quentin “as consistent a worker and smart a worker” he’s coached, and marveled at his competitiveness.
“I don’t care if you played him in pingpong, basketball or football, he’d get after you,” Walker said.
In a clubhouse with several oversized personalities, Quentin’s all-business demeanor stands out.
He often spends just enough time at his locker to grab his bat before darting off to the cage or field, rarely cracking a smile. If he’s not running from the spotlight, Quentin isn’t exactly embracing it, either. He’s clearly not as comfortable in front of the notepads and cameras as he is at the plate.
“I’m enjoying winning with this team, I’m enjoying playing and being in the dugout and the locker room and watching just the excitement, but as far as talking in front of a camera and stuff I can be with or without it,” he said.
The attention is only going to magnify over the final month, with the White Sox in a pennant race and Quentin making an MVP push. He realizes that and insists he’s ready.
“I think I’m prepared for anything right now,” Quentin said. “This is what I do. This is baseball, prepare yourself for what you are going to experience. I don’t know how to say this, I want to say it in the right way, there a lot of things in life a lot more important than attention. So when I say I’m prepared for whatever happens in this game I say that being that I experienced lows in this game like every player and you experience good things. Things come with both so I’m not going to be frightened by anything.”
Among those who could stand in the way of an MVP award are Texas’ Josh Hamilton and Minnesota’s Justin Morneau, although being MVP doesn’t top Quentin’s list of priorities.
He called it “the furthest thing” from his mind and wasn’t sure what to make of the chants.
“It’s nice,” he said. “It shows the fan support of the team. They appreciate what I’ve been able to do for the team. But there’s nothing to say besides that.”
He’ll leave the lobbying to others.
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