A former UA baseball standout is getting a change of scenery on his road to the big leagues.
Infielder Nick Quintana, who played at Arizona from 2017-19, has been traded from the Detroit Tigers to the Cincinnati Reds in a deal that sends catcher Tucker Barhnardt to Detroit.
Quintana, 24, was a second-round pick of the Tigers in the 2019 MLB Draft. Since then he’s hit just .190 in 155 minor league games, spending most of the 2021 season with Class-A Lakeland (Fla.) where he batted .186 with nine home runs and 47 RBI in 89 games.
At Arizona, Quintana hit .317 with 35 homers and 170 RBI in 170 games, including .342 with 15 homers and 77 RBI as a junior in 2019.
Quintana was one of 14 players from the 2019 UA squad to get drafted, either that year or since. Cameron Cannon, Matthew Fraizer, Avery Weems, Andrew Nardi and Randy Labaut were also taken in the 2019 draft, while Austin Wells and Matthew Dyer were selected in the COVID-shortened 2020 draft and the 2021 draft saw Ryan Holgate, Branden Boissiere, Donta’ Williams, Dayton Dooney, Gil Luna and Kobe Kato get picked.
Barnhardt, 30, spent the past eight seasons with the Reds, hitting .247 with seven homers and 48 RBI in 116 games with Cincinnati in 2021.
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