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I’ve said it before, getting upset over subjective rankings can be a little dumb, but I simply can’t stand for the continued disrespect of Jose Quintana.
What makes it worse is that there is still a section of Chicago Cubs fans who choose to be ignorant on how good Quintana is and I bet it has everything to do with the lefty previously being with the White Sox. However, this isn’t about those fans. This is about the so-called experts at MLB Network that made a list of the 100 best players in the game. A list that doesn’t include one of the best starting pitchers during the past five years.
I can understand some fans holding onto some weird feelings of undervaluing a player because of a rivalry or hatred of another team, but for MLB analysts to not recognize Quintana is insulting.
If you look at Quintana’s value over the last three seasons, he’s right up there with the elite pitchers in MLB.
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Question: Since 2015, which pitcher's 13.3 WAR trails only Kershaw, Sale, Scherzer, Kluber, and Arrieta?
Answer: pic.twitter.com/1qsvRNXILP
— Cubs Insider (@realcubsinsider) February 21, 2018
By the way, Jake Arrieta has accumulated a 13.5 fWAR during the three-year span that included his amazing 2015 season, when he had a 7.3 fWAR. So again, with the WAR metric, Quintana has been a top-six starting pitcher in MLB since 2015.
There are 21 starting pitchers in the MLB Network top-100 list that does include Kyle Hendricks at No. 66 and Yu Darvish at No. 67. We all saw the decline of Jake Arrieta in 2017, but he somehow made the list at No. 72, despite having a much worse season than Quintana.
By any projection, Quintana is expected to be the best starting pitcher for the Cubs in 2018, and it’s great that although Kyle Hendricks isn’t at all flashy, he still received some love, but how about some love Q?
At least the SI top-100 had Quintana ranked 80th, so that’s a start.
Here are all the Cubs players that appear on both lists.
MLB Network:
- Kris Bryant – 8th
- Anthony Rizzo – 23rd
- Willson Contreras – 58th
- Kyle Hendricks – 66th
- Yu Darvish – 67th
- Kyle Schwarber – 95th
Sports Illustrated:
- Kris Bryant – 3rd
- Anthony Rizzo – 23rd
- Yu Darvish – 58th
- Jon Lester – 70th
- Kyle Hendricks – 72nd
- Jose Quintana – 80th
- Willson Contreras – 91st
The MLB Network list ranked Nolan Arenado ahead of Kris Bryant, so those rankings are simply invalid.
Back to Quintana. Last year he pitched in the World Baseball Classic and also admitted the trade rumors affected him negatively. Now, he’s with the Cubs from the start of the season and with no other distractions it would be silly not to think he could end up being the team’s best starting pitcher even with Yu Darvish, Kyle Hendricks and maybe a rebound season from Jon Lester in the same rotation.
