FORT MYERS, Fla. – Spending Father’s Day in Southwest Florida has become a happy recurrence for Martin Quintana from Las Vegas, Nev. He was here with one of his sons, Zach, on Father’s Day 2011, which fell on June 19 that year. He was back again Sunday – Father’s Day 2015 – this time with another son, Nicholas.
The Quintanas have gathered here on Father’s Day twice in the last four years to celebrate baseball’s future at the Perfect Game National Showcase. This year’s 15h annual PG National is a day away from wrapping up its six-day run at beautiful JetBlue Park. When the door is finally closed on the event Monday, more than 320 of the top prep prospects from the class of 2016 will have been given an opportunity to show their stuff in front of hundreds of pro scouts and college coaches.
One of those prospects was Las Vegas’s Nicholas Quintana, the nation’s No. 1-ranked shortstop prospect (No. 7 overall) and a kid who was proud to be able to share his time performing on a national stage with his dad. The only person in the park who was more proud was Martin Quintana, who was thrilled to be here with his son.
“It’s definitely an awesome opportunity, as a dad, to follow along his dreams; to be a part of his dreams and to be able to be here and support him,” Martin Quintana said. “It’s taken quite a few years of hard work on his part – a lot of time on fields and in the batting cages – but it’s paying off and here we are.”
Zach Quintana, a 2012 graduate of Arbor View High School in Las Vegas, was at the 2011 PG National Showcase which was held at City of Palms Park near historic downtown Fort Myers. Zach is a right-handed pitcher who was selected by the Milwaukee Brewers in the third-round of the 2012 MLB First-Year Player Draft. He has since been traded to the Atlanta Braves organization and this year is pitching in the South Atlantic League for the Braves’ Class A affiliate in Rome, Ga.
Nicholas Quintana remembers just about everything from the years Zach was going through what Nicholas is going through now simply because he was the type of little brother who tagged after his big brother everywhere he went. But Nicholas wasn’t just watching like some awestruck 13-year-old brother – he was learning, too.
“He’s probably had the biggest influence on (my baseball career) other than my dad,” Quintana said of his older brother. “He tells me what to do, what not to do: be respectful, show your character when you’re going in and out of the airport, things like that. He teaches me many things that I don’t think a lot of the other players can be taught because not many players have a brother in professional baseball.
“He’s got three years (of professional baseball) under his belt … and the information he gets from his coaches he passes down to me. I think that gives me an ‘in’ that other players don’t have.”
In early December 2012, Quintana signed up for the Perfect Game National Underclass Showcase-Session 1 in Glendale, Ariz., which turned out to be the first of six PG showcases he would attend, counting the PG National.
He may have been a showcase rookie at the time, but his performance was strong enough that he became the event’s only class of 2016 player to be named to the Top Prospect List. It sent into motion a remarkable change of events for a kid who had just turned 15 years old less than two months previous.
His next stop, in early June 2013, was the Sunshine West Showcase, where he was again named to the TPL; yet another TPL citation came when he returned to the PG National Underclass Showcase-Session 1 in December 2014. As a perfect capper, a fourth straight TPL distinction came exactly a year ago this week when he made the grade at the 2014 Jr. National Showcase right here at JetBlue Park.
“I try to approach everything the same way,” Quintana said of his showcase prowess. “When I was younger I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m so nervous; I’ve got to go out there and showoff.’ The more showcases I went to I was calmer and I wasn’t so nervous, and there wasn’t so much expectation. I can come here and be relaxed, and when I’m more relaxed I’m better.”
He takes the same sort of attitude into tournament play. He reminds himself that this isn’t his high school team and he’s surrounded by a lot of talented guys – some of whom he’s never met before – and he looks at it as an opportunity to make new friends. So why not go out and play relaxed and do the things he’s comfortable doing?
“To get here from where I was when I was going into my sophomore year, it’s definitely a big achievement for me,” Quintana said. “I watched my brother go through all these stages and I thought it would be cool to do the same thing. Now that I’m actually doing it I’m like ‘wow’, now I know what it tastes like.”
Quintana, a University of Southern California commit, has played in only two PG tournaments. He was at the 2014 PG/EvoShield National Championship where he was named to the all-tournament team while playing for the SACSN National Team and then played at the PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla., with the Ohio Warhawks. He spent almost two months in Salt Lake City played in nearly 70 games at various tournaments with the Utah Bucks.
This summer he’ll take it a step further as a member of the five-time PG national champion EvoShield Canes, and is already on the Canes’ roster for the 17u PG WWBA National Championship in Emerson, Ga., July 3-10. Quintana said he not exactly sure where someone on the Canes’ coaching staff saw him play, but head coach Jeff Petty invited him to join the team and he was more than eager to oblige.
“I already knew who the EvoShield Canes were just from their reputation, and I knew this was a great club team,” he said. “I thought it would be a really cool experience to play with guys that are really good, and I think it’s going to be really fund spending the rest of the summer with them.”
By most reports, Quintana was a better offensive player than defensive player a couple of years ago but has developed into the best defensive shortstop in his class (hence the No. 1 national ranking at the position); he threw 93 mph across the infield during Sunday’s workout session.
When the first PG class of 2016 national prospect rankings were released on Sept. 30, 2012, Quintana came in at No. 31 overall. A little over a year later he had slipped to No. 33 but then began to make a pronounced climb. He was up to No. 12 on Feb. 2, 2014 and hit his current No. 7 ranking on Nov. 17, 2014.
It’s been said that rankings should be used the same way an intoxicated person uses a lamp post – more for support than illumination – but these are numbers that aren’t lost on prospects and parents alike.
“When your kid is ranked that high, it comes with a lot of pressure for the kid,” Martin Quintana said. “We try to keep things humble and kind of stay away from the rankings. It’s amazing just to be recognized and ranked that high by PG … but overall it’s not easy being ranked that high. I’m so happy that PG (sees) that his skill-set is there and he’s worked very hard to deserve that recognition.”
Quintana just completed his junior year at Arbor View High School, and the Aggies finished 24-12 after losing in both the winner’s bracket and loser’s bracket finals at the Nevada Division-I (big school) state playoffs. Final season statistics weren’t readily available Sunday but his dad said Quintana enjoyed a fine junior season despite being pitched around and never seeing a fastball.
This is a historic time to be a promising baseball prospect from Las Vegas. It wasn’t that long ago that the Vegas’ favorite baseball son – perhaps its only baseball son – was Hall-of-Famer Greg Maddox, but that has changed drastically with the generation that Quintana is a part of.
It starts with Washington Nationals right fielder, two-time National League All-Star and 2012 NL Rookie of the Year Bryce Harper, but it doesn’t end there. Just this season, Las Vegas native sons Kris Bryant (Cubs) and Joey Gallo (Rangers) – both alumni of the PG National Showcase – have made their big-league debuts amid much fanfare and success. Gallo and Zach Quintana were both at the 2011 PG National Showcase.
“There are a bunch of kids who are really good now and they’re coming out of Vegas,” Quintana said. “I think in the next few years to come, Vegas is going to produce a lot of high-caliber players and that’s a real special thing.”
Despite that claim, Martin Quintana this was an important time in Nicholas’s life to get out of Las Vegas and see other great players from other parts of the country. Attending the PG National gave Nicholas the opportunity to listen and learn and see the things he needs to work so he can excel at the next level, whether that’s in college or in pro ball.
“I’ve seen some great talent out here and you’ve got to keep working hard because someone else is probably working hard at getting better,” Martin said. “I want him to not get relaxed, not get comfortable with where he’s at and for him to keep working, working and working.”
There wasn’t much of a decision-making process involved when it came time for Quintana to choose his college. He looked at Southern Cal’s baseball program, which he called “historic” and recognizes that in recent years it’s been kind of an up-and-down ride, but USC was the place Quintana always wanted to land.
“Not really a whole lot went into that decision,” he said. “I know that it’s a real good school for education as far as getting a degree and everything, and just that on its own can give me a backup plan if baseball doesn’t work out.
“So that was pretty much my decision: I always wanted to go there, the baseball team has a historic background and can be real good in the future and the education is just unreal, I think.”
Nicholas being invited to the PG National Showcase kind of brings things full circle for Martin. Zach was at the event in 2011 which was held at City of Palms Park near historic downtown Fort Myers. City of Palms and the Player Development 5-Plex served as the Red Sox’s spring training home before the JetBlue Player Development Complex opened in 2012.
Martin, celebrating Father’s Day a little early, had a telephone conversation with Zach Saturday night and the two were reminiscing about Zach’s PG National experience at City of Palms. Martin sent him a photo of JetBlue Park and said Zach was duly impressed with the upgrade in facilities.
“You know as parents we do what we can and we try to give our kids every opportunity,” Martin Quintana said. “We make sacrifices as parents and it’s a very expensive process to do all the showcases and the traveling, but ultimately the kids are putting in the effort and they want to play baseball and we’ll do what we can to give them that opportunity.”
Quintana is grateful for the opportunities he’s been afforded and that he was able to spend Father’s Day with his dad at the ballpark. And while he hopes to continue to spend Father’s Day with his dad at ballparks all across the country, he’s really not in any big hurry to put these high school days in his rearview mirror:
“I’m just taking it a step at a time,” he said. “I don’t want to rush it too fast because these are memories you won’t ever forget. I’ve got my senior year coming up next season and I’m just going to take whatever comes one step at a time.”