Chicago Cubs: Quintana trade is officially a failure

In an offseason that is going to see several changes to the roster, the Chicago Cubs should decline Jose Quintana’s 2020 option.

When the Chicago Cubs pulled the trigger to acquire Jose Quintana from the Chicago White Sox in July 2017, the trade made a lot of sense for both sides. The Cubs, who were coming off their first World Series title in 108 years, were still in a “win-now” mode and the White Sox received several budding prospects to accelerate their rebuild. Eloy Jimenez was one of those prospects and made his big league debut at the beginning of the season.

The 22-year-old put up a robust 0.267/0.315/0.513 line with 18 doubles, 2 triples, 31 home runs, and 79 RBI in 122 games. He struck out 134 times, which is common for young players, but he is going to get better each season as his pitch recognition improves.

Quintana, on the other hand, was terrific in his first start with the Cubs, striking out 12 in an 8-0 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. He put together a solid season last year with a 4.03 ERA in 174.1 innings of work but was a massive disappointment this year. The 30-year-old southpaw made 31 starts for the north siders and allowed the most runs and earned runs of his career while spinning a 4.68 ERA.

He was hit the hardest of his career in 2019 at a 38 percent clip, average exit velocity of 88.9 mph, and struck out the fewest at just over 20 percent. A closer review of his pitch usage indicates that Quintana utilized his four-seamer at a career-low 36.4 percent of the time while his sinker was at a career-high 25.4 percent  (via StatCast). Looking back to the 2018 season, Quintana was utilizing his four-seam fastball at nearly a 50 percent clip which produced an opponents’ batting average of just 0.243. Flash forward to 2019 and batters were able to hit 0.296 off his four-seamer.

His sinker experienced a similar increased in opponents’ batting average but Quintana’s changeup was, by far, his worst pitch this season. He utilized the pitch at an 11 percent clip but opponents were able to slug 0.538 off it.

The Cubs, as a franchise, will experience major changes this offseason, starting with a new manager and potentially all-new coaching staff but could see a couple of core players traded in an attempt to fix the offense that has largely been boom or bust for the last couple of seasons. Quintana’s club option for next season is a modest $10.5 million but it’s probably best just to move on as the Cubs will need to fill both his and Hamels’ spots in the rotation.

It would be expected that Adbert Alzolay gets the first crack at one of the spots as the 24-year-old put up great numbers for Triple-A Iowa this season. As far as the other opening, the team will have to bring another prospect up, which is not ideal given the talent, or pursue a starting pitcher in free agency.