White Sox starter Jose Quintana earned a spot on MLB.com/Sports on Earth writer Anthony Castrovince’s All-Underrated Team on Friday.
Quintana, of course, is no secret here in Chicago. I wrote last season how valued he is by the White Sox.
But nationally, Quintana hasn’t really made much of a blip on the radar screens.
Here’s what Castrovince had to say:
I was considering Lance Lynn for my starting slot, but the three-year, $22 million extension he signed Thursday and the annual October attention have probably allowed him to graduate from the underrated domain. Maybe Quintana will get to October this year. He now finds himself on a loaded White Sox roster, and he’s considered a complementary rotation piece to Chris Sale and the newly acquired Jeff Samardzija. But Quintana’s contributions to date in his career have been more than just complementary. In fact, Quintana’s WAR mark over his three-year career to date is 10.7, per FanGraphs. You know who falls just below him in that span? Madison Bumgarner, at 10.0. OK, until Quintana is tossing five scoreless relief innings on short rest in Game 7 of the World Series, he’s no Bumgarner. And his raw fastball doesn’t exactly entice the imagination. He’s just a no-nonsense kid with a smooth delivery and improving home run and strikeout rates. His career ballpark-adjusted ERA+ is 17 points above league average, and he’s delivered 200 innings in consecutive seasons now.
Quintana may have been one of the unluckiest starting pitchers in baseball last season. He posted a 9-11 record despite a solid 3.32 ERA with 178 strikeouts against 52 walks. He surrendered 10 home runs in 200.1 innings.
Of course, on a pitching staff that now includes Chris Sale, Jeff Samardzija and closer David Robertson, Quintana may be even more overlooked.
