Jose Quintana: The Underrated White Sox

Every casual baseball fan knows who Chris Sale is. He’s the pitcher who just missed the AL Cy Young two years in row and started off this season going 9-0. Arguably, he’s been the South Siders best pitcher for the past handful of years now. However, as good as Sale is, he’s no Jose Quintana. As of the writing of this post, Quintana currently leads all American League pitchers in WAR (2.8) and has the 4th best WAR in the Majors. Chris Sale and his 2.3 WAR is not far behind Quintana and has the second best WAR in the AL, but for some reason, Chris Sale gets all of the love and Quintana gets stuck playing little brother like the White Sox to the Chicago Cubs.

Well, it’s not entirely difficult to see why Sale gets all of the love. For starters, for the vast majority of his career, Chris Sale has been a literal strike out machine. He has a career 10.17 K/9 and he had an MLB leading 11.82 K/9 in 2015. Compare that to Quintana’s 7.37 career K/9 and his career best 8.00 K/9 in 2014 coming into the 2016 season. But secondly, and most importantly, the White Sox refuse to win for Jose Quintana. While Chris Sale has 9 wins as of the writing of this article, Quintana only has 5. But it’s not just this year. Throughout Jose Quintana’s tenure with the Pale Hose, the team refuses to score runs when he’s on the mound and win games he’s started. As of mid-April, Quintana had a record of 34-34 despite a 116 ERA+, and it hasn't gotten much better since. You would think with a low ERA and low win total that Jose Quintana just doesn’t go deep into games allowing him to earn the "W" much more unlikely. However, that is untrue as he’s pitched over 200 innings in each of the past three seasons.

Jose Quintana may not have lights out stuff like Chris Sale has, but he’s just as good. Quintana posted a 5.1 WAR in 2014 (good for 10^th best in all of baseball and despite a 9-11 record), a 4.8 WAR in 2015 (good for 14^th best in all of baseball and despite a 9-10 record), and is easily on pace for another Top 10 WAR finish this year. Yet despite the average fantasy baseball statistics Quintana is putting up, he’s become a legitimate threat in the league. The 1-2 combination of Jose Quintana and Chris Sale means the White Sox are a force to be reckoned with. 

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