Dodgers Rumors: LA missed out on a great opportunity in Jose Quintana

Jose Quintana has been the subject of many Dodgers rumors in recent months. Yet still, the Dodgers seemingly missed out big time on his services.

The first blockbuster trade of the summer is upon us as the Chicago Cubs acquired Jose Quintana from the Chicago White Sox in exchange for Eloy Jimenez, Dylan Cease, Matt Rose and Bryan Flete. The White Sox bolstered their farm again, adding two top 100 prospects in Jimenez and Cease. Quintana, who has been in his fair share of Dodgers rumors, now joins a scary Cubs team.

Dodger fans may laugh when hearing that the Chicago Cubs are dangerous. Los Angeles convincingly swept the defending champs back in May. With Chicago standing in with a 43-45 record, adding a pitcher that is above a 4.00 ERA shouldn’t make them deadly.

Yet, we all know how talented this Cubs team is and how quickly they can turn the corner. However, although the Dodgers need to keep the defending champs on their radar, fans should not help but feel like the team missed out on Quintana.

As a member of the Dodgers fandom myself, I see one response from this deal. Something along the lines of “Man, I am really glad Andrew Friedman didn’t give this kind of payout for Quintana – he’s not even that good!”

That is completely justifiable and on the surface, I believed the same thing. However deeper investigation shows that perhaps the Dodgers should have brought in Quintana, even with a hefty price tag.

Jimenez and Cease were the top two prospects in the Cubs organization and ranked eighth and 63rd on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 Prospects list, respectively. This adds to the already stacked Chicago farm system that now hosts nine top 100 prospects, two in the top ten and four in the top 25.

If the Dodgers were going to get this deal done they likely would have packaged a slightly different offer. With a surplus of starting pitchers, the Dodgers best bet was to package an existing arm with prospects. Hyun-Jin Ryu, Yadier Alvarez and Alex Verdugo would have worked. I love Verdugo as much as the next guy, but the outfield is just too crowded.

Many fans want to hold onto the farm system and I get that, but I am sick and tired of this team being complacent, especially with all the Dodgers rumors. While the Dodgers have made somewhat big deals in the past, like last year with Oakland, the team never goes out and gets that marquee player.

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Sure, now we have Corey Seager, Cody Bellinger and Julio Urias because we decided not to buy in, but out current farm does not have that kind of superstar potential. Los Angeles could sell high while they can and finally bring home a ring. The core of this team is already so young, trading away some prospects won’t hurt.

And while Quintana’s ERA may not seem the best, he hasn’t been that bad this year. He ranks 26th in Field Independent Pitching of qualified pitchers (4.01) and 18th in Wins Above Replacement (2.0).

FIP is a tool used by FanGraphs to measure how a pitcher really performs without outside factors such as fielding quality, bad bounces and luck. Like it or not, luck plays a huge role in baseball. If you want to read more about it you can find FanGraphs’ explanation of it here.

Quintana’s FIP is actually lower than Brandon McCarthy. McCarthy has had a great bounce-back year amounting to a 3.12 ERA, but he has been much luckier and has had much better defense behind him that Quintana. Put Quintana in the moisture heavy Chavez Ravine with the Dodgers defense and we would see his ERA plummet.

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Overall, it is disappointing to see Jose Quintana go somewhere besides Los Angeles. Despite all the Dodgers rumors and his very favorable contract, Los Angeles could not put pen to paper on this deal.

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