Chicago White Sox: Is Jose Quintana hurting trade value?

Jose Quintana’s name has been in the rumor mill for months, but will his rough first two months dampen teams’ interest in the White Sox left-hander?

The trade clock on Jose Quintana started running from virtually the moment the Chicago White Sox dealt Chris Sale to Boston. With a full-scale rebuild underway, surely general manager Rick Hahn wouldn’t waste much time shipping out his other talented lefty with years of team control remaining.

However, Hahn chose not to jump the gun, holding firm to his reportedly high demands for Quintana. As the rest of the offseason and spring training passed without a deal, the July trade deadline seemed like the next potential window for something to happen.

The one thing many observers didn’t expect was such a poor opening third of the season from the 28-year-old. Through 11 starts, Quintana owns an uncharacteristic 5.60 ERA, 1.40 WHIP and 2.67 K/BB ratio in 64.1 innings. He’s been slapped with a major league-high seven losses. It certainly hasn’t been the ace-level performance the White Sox were hoping to sell to interested buyers.

But will those prospective suitors care much? Is this merely a temporary rough stretch for Quintana, or the sign of something more concerning?

Quintana had actually appeared to be getting back on track before a pair of disastrous outings in his last two starts. He carried an ugly 6.75 ERA through his first three appearances of the season, but then went on to post a 2.70 mark over his next six outings.

But the resurgence stopped there. Quintana allowed eight runs in 4.1 innings against the Diamondbacks on May 24, and was then hammered by the Red Sox for seven runs in only 2.2 frames on May 30. After lowering his season ERA to near respectable levels at 3.92, his last two outings have raised it again all the way to 5.60.

Nevertheless, we still saw some of Quintana at his best in the month of May. He tossed eight scoreless innings against the Royals on May 2. A couple weeks later on May 19, he fired another gem in Seattle, holding the Mariners to one run on one hit across eight frames. The Quintana we’ve grown used to seeing hasn’t disappeared entirely.

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There is also reason to believe the southpaw could be in for some better days ahead. His .315 BABIP is a bit higher and his 65.4 percent left-on-base rate a bit lower than usual. Quintana has also been more homer-prone, serving up 1.4 long balls per nine innings compared to a career 0.8 HR/9. If those factors straighten out, his overall results should improve noticeably.

There doesn’t appear to be any significant drop-off in velocity; Quintana’s fastball is still averaging around 92 mph. He is actually managing the highest K/9 rate of his career thus far at 9.0. His previous high was 8.0 K/9 in 2014. However, he’s issuing more free passes: Quintana’s current 3.4 BB/9 is up from last year’s 2.2.

Given Quintana’s track record, teams aren’t likely to get too scared away by his recent struggles. From 2013 to 2016, he posted a 3.35 ERA, 1.22 WHIP and 3.47 K/BB while averaging 204 innings per season. Over that span, his 18.1 fWAR was the seventh highest among all big league pitchers, above names like Bumgarner, Arrieta and Verlander. Talent evaluators will likely put more stock in that than a handful of bad outings in the first two months of 2017. He’s not yet at an age where you would expect natural decline.

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The White Sox aren’t compelled to trade Quintana by this season’s deadline, either. Part of his appeal is that he is potentially under team control through 2020 at an affordable rate if a pair of options are exercised. If Chicago doesn’t receive an agreeable offer, they can wait for him to hopefully rebuild some value and then shop him again next winter. Depending on how the team finishes the season (they haven’t exactly been the cellar-dwellers most imagined so far) they might even prefer to keep him at that point.

Statistics courtesy of Fangraphs.

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