Pitcher List on Rotographs: The Tweak In Jose Quintana’s Approach

I’m writing about starting pitching for Rotographs and thought the Pitcher List community would enjoy the in-depth discussion.

This offseason, I’m taking the time to study the arms that deserve a little bit of extra attention. Sure, every starter should get a bit more than your standard gloss over, but you know Max Scherzer is a top tier starter and you’re aware that Andrew Cashner will not come close to repeating his 3.40 ERA. I can also imagine that Jose Quintana will be getting this standard treatment by many. You’re going to have some that consider him a stable arm and grab him as a #2 SP and you have others – myself included – that treat him as someone who will wait to see him fall before considering him for your staff.

But that was the old me. Quintana made a significant tweak in his approach this season and I didn’t know any better.

Let’s talk about the 32 starts Quintana made in 2017. The shallow numbers aren’t very encouraging – 4.15 ERA, a career-high 7.7% walk rate, with the first HR/FB rate above 10% since 2013 (near league average of 13.2%). Not atrocious, but certainly not what you’d expect from someone going around the #20th SP off the board in early mock drafts.

2017 was a tale of two halves for Quintana, though. Well, not two halves exactly, but the first 11 games compared to the final 21 were vastly different.

Read the rest of the article here at Rotographs.