Jose Quintana named to baseball writer’s ‘all-underrated team’

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.