In 2024, after an damage to Kodai Senga, Jose Quintana was the Mets’ Opening Day starter, dealing with the Brewers. Now, after an inventory of accidents that’s means too lengthy for an introduction paragraph, Quintana shall be becoming a member of the Brewers rotation. On Monday, the Brewers and the 36-year-old left-hander agreed to a one-year deal value $4.25 million. Robert Murray of FanSided reported the deal, and MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand broke the contract phrases. Because the Mets signed former Brewer Frankie Montas in December, the 2 groups are successfully performing their very own second-hand pitcher swap.
Quintana’s deal, equivalent to it’s, makes it the big-money transaction of the offseason for the Brewers. It’s undoubtedly not sufficient to make followers neglect about proprietor Mark Attanasio’s current feedback: “Is my job to win a World Sequence,” he mentioned, “or is my job to offer a summer season of leisure and keenness and a means for households to come back collectively?” (Not that it’s the purview of this specific article, however the reply to each questions, in fact, is sure.) Till yesterday, Milwaukee’s priciest addition was a $1 million deal for reliever Tyler Alexander, however the group’s largest transfer of the offseason continues to be the one which despatched nearer Devin Williams to the Yankees in alternate for one 12 months of lefty starter Nestor Cortes and infield prospect Caleb Durbin. Christmas solely comes annually in Milwaukee.
Let’s circle again to the accidents I discussed. The Brewers shall be beginning the season with out ace Brandon Woodruff, who’s recovering from shoulder surgical procedure, DL Corridor, who suffered a lat pressure a number of weeks in the past, Robert Gasser, who underwent Tommy John surgical procedure in June, and Aaron Ashby, whose indirect pressure was simply introduced Monday. Its severity continues to be to be decided by an MRI. You see why I couldn’t put all that within the second sentence? All because of this Quintana shall be becoming a member of ace Freddy Peralta, Cortes, Aaron Civale, and Tobias Myers within the probably Opening Day rotation.
I volunteered to put in writing this text as a result of I additionally wrote up Quintana’s two-year cope with the Mets again in December 2022, and I used to be inquisitive about what might need modified. Again then, he was 34 and coming off a considerably out-of-nowhere four-win season with a 2.93 ERA, largely due to an enormous drop in his house run price. Over the primary 10 years of his profession, he’d allowed 0.96 house runs per 9 innings, however in 2022, that price fell by greater than half, all the best way to 0.43. As a regression candidate, he appeared just like the world’s surest factor. A benign lesion on his rib that necessitated bone graft surgical procedure restricted him to 13 begins in 2023, and over that brief pattern, his house run price stayed down, but it surely bounced all the best way again in 2024. Though he’s run a 3.70 ERA over the previous two seasons, the superior estimators are smelling blood: His 4.24 FIP and 4.45 xFIP are the best for any two-year stretch of his profession.
For essentially the most half, the superior estimators are merely objecting to the ravages of time. (ERA estimators: They’re similar to us!) Quintana’s fastballs lastly settled in beneath 91 mph, which allowed batters to make extra contact together with his four-seamer, particularly contact of the barreled selection. So he lower his four-seamer price and backfilled with sinkers, which stored his groundball price good and glossy however crushed his popup price. The diminished velocity additionally pressured Quintana to be finer together with his pitches. The warmth maps beneath present his four-seamer. The one on the left combines 2021 and 2022, whereas the one on the suitable combines 2023 and 2024.
Quintana has at all times tried to raise the pitch to his glove-side nook, however he additionally used to search for whiffs down the center or above the zone. Now that he’s not getting the chases or whiffs, he’s simply aiming for the nook. Quintana’s edge price – the share of pitches which are inside one ball-width of the sting of the strike zone – has risen in every successive season since 2019.
None of those modifications did something to assist his already low strikeout price, and it made the trail to success extra tenuous. It’s simply powerful when the margin for error is that small. It’s not like this can be a new story. Quintana is 36, and though he’s by no means had the rate to blow batters away, there’s now not any doubt that he’s absolutely transitioned from common lefty to artful lefty.
Clearly, Quintana’s not afraid to make modifications, tweaking his pitch combine, his areas, and even the pitches themselves. In 2024, he killed somewhat rise and added somewhat further arm-side run to his changeup, main the pitching fashions to enhance its ranking from “Please God, No” all the best way as much as “[Sigh] If You Should.” What extra might he do, except for hop in a time machine? A part of me, realizing that the Brewers ranked fourth in baseball in cutter price final 12 months and seeing the large hole in motion between his four-seamer and his breaking pitches, thinks that Quintana could be a very good candidate for a cutter. However one other a part of me thinks that including an 86-mph pitch with eight inches of rise and just about no horizontal break in any respect could be be about as efficient as wheeling a pitching machine up onto the mound.
As Jay Jaffe famous final week when he wrote up the very best pitchers nonetheless available on the market, Quintana struggled mightily for many of the season, then utterly turned issues round, starting on August 20. Over his final seven begins, he posted a 0.74 ERA, 2.48 FIP, and three.52 xFIP, all of which represented enormous enhancements on his numbers to that time. The largest modifications to his stats over that closing scorching stretch? Quintana stranded 89% of his baserunners, didn’t permit a single homer, and ran a 62% groundball price. Clearly, the primary two objects on that listing aren’t precisely repeatable, however Quintana’s fastball velocity additionally ticked again as much as 91.4 mph over that closing stretch, and never coincidentally, he began throwing extra pitches within the zone and fewer over the sting. Even when the Brewers didn’t imagine in every other a part of Quintana’s closing run, the rate spike, and the best way he pitched when he as soon as once more had confidence in his heaters, will need to have been a giant purpose for his or her choice to take an opportunity on him.
The final level is a enjoyable one: If Quintana’s objective was to maintain beating his FIP, he couldn’t have picked a sweeter touchdown spot. His excessive groundball price ought to play simply fantastic in Milwaukee. Yr in 12 months out, the Brewers have among the finest defenses in baseball. Though they misplaced shortstop Willy Adames, if Joey Ortiz takes over for him like we anticipate, he would possibly even symbolize an enchancment on the place. There’s no strategy to understand how a lot Quintana has left within the tank, or whether or not his elevated velocity towards the tip of the season was a mirage, however so long as he retains it on the bottom, he’ll have an opportunity.
