[Hoover]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Let's be fair here - Quintana has been a roughly 4.5 WAR/yr pitcher for the last 4 years.

That is not a 'solid #3'.

Quintana doesn't have the kind of stuff I look for in a post-season starter, but neither did Hendricks or Lackey. And just a couple of days ago you were talking about Hendricks 'true talent' and claiming he was a genuine top tier starter despite the fact that he's not conventionally 'dominant'.

Well Quintana fits a very similar mold. Now perhaps Hendricks is proof that those kinds of guys have so little margin for error that you shouldn't be acquiring them for big packages because they can fall off with even a small decline in skills. But he's also a solid argument that there are a lot of different ways to succeed in this game.

The Cubs are betting that the last 7 starts suggest that Quintana's skills haven't eroded and he's back to being that 4-5 WAR pitcher he's been literally every other year of his career. If that's the case, they just got about $80 million in surplus value over the next 3+ seasons. Maybe they're wrong. Maybe the 3 year pattern of slippage in his FIP is a sign of genuine slippage.

But that's baseball. If it were easy these execs wouldn't make the money they do. Theo took a gamble - we'll see how it works out.

BINGO

Great post.