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Jose Quintana 2019 Outlook: Southpaw Stands As Decent Bounceback Candidate
Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Jose Quintana is coming off of a disappointing 2018 where he was lucky to escape with just a 4.03 ERA over 174 ⅓ innings. The 30-year-old southpaw’s ERA had a sorry 4.43 FIP/4.18 xFIP/4.39 SIERA underneath the hood and a career-worst 9.2% walk rate helped bloat his WHIP up to 1.32. Pitchers can have off-nights or even off-seasons, but no injury is known at this time and his saddening campaign also saw a decrease in swinging strikes even in The Whiff Era. It wasn’t much, but the 8% swinging-strike rate yielded a 21.4% strikeout rate that was well down from the 26.2% strikeout rate from ‘17. The strikeout and walk woes combined for a 12.2% K-BB% that ranked 55th out of 78 starters (with >150 IP in ‘18) while a career-high 33.1% hard-hit rate and dampened 15.9% soft contact rate (his worst since his rookie season) led to a career-worst 14.7% HR/FB rate and 1.29 HR/9 rate. At age 30, Quintana still has a strong track record against one bad year and boasts a top-five defense, as well as durability that has yielded at least 32 starts made in six straight seasons. You could do a lot worse for a reclamation project in ‘19 given his 179 ADP and our site ranking of 173rd.
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