The angels, who had been looking for help with their rotation all winter, finally grabbed a mug Tuesday night and agreed to a one-year deal with left-handed Jose Quintana.
The deal, which was not announced by the club, is said to be worth $ 8 million.
The 31-year-old Quintana has spent the past three and a half seasons pitching for the Chicago Cubs, most of the time under current Angels manager Joe Maddon.
Quintana has a career of 3.73 ERA including an All-Star appearance in 2016. He only threw four games in 2020 and missed most of the shortened season with two injuries. When he switched off the sport last spring, he cut off his hand washing dishes and contracted lat inflammation in early September.
While Quintana isn’t facing the Angels rotation, he offers experience and depth for a rotation that was one of the team’s weakest areas last season.
Quintana likely fits somewhere in the middle with a rotation from Dylan Bundy, Andrew Heaney, and Griffin Canning. The Angels also hope Shohei Ohtani can return from two seasons lost to arm injuries to be a productive starter.
The deal brings the Angels’ wage bill for luxury tax purposes to approximately $ 184 million. The tax begins when the payroll exceeds $ 210 million. If the angels aren’t ready to cross the threshold, it could be difficult to afford the market’s top pitcher Trevor Bauer. Other cheaper free agent options include Jake Odorizzi, Masahiro Tanaka, and Taijuan Walker.
The angels hope that Quintana can break with the recent trend of the angels standing blank in their one-year contracts to start with. Trevor Cahill, Matt Harvey and Julio Tehran have produced little in recent years. All three had been much better a few years before joining the Angels, as had Quintana.
Quintana began his career with the Chicago White Sox as one of the more consistent and durable pitchers in baseball.
From 2012 to 2016, Quintana had an ERA of 3.41 and an average of 30 starts per season. In 2016, he had an ERA of 3.20 and was ranked 10th in the Cy Young poll.
The following season the White Sox traded him across town to the Cubs. After posting a 4.49 ERA with the White Sox in the first part of the season, Quintana finished the Cubs with a 3.74 ERA and helped them into the playoffs.
For the next two seasons, Quintana was a steadfast inning eater under Maddon. He started 63 games and threw 345-1 / 3 innings.
His 2020 season wasn’t much thanks to a chance accident at home. Just days before the players returned to summer camp in early July, Quintana suffered nerve damage to his thumb when he cut his hand while washing dishes. He needed an operation and didn’t pose until August 25th.
Quintana then appeared in just two games before sustaining the lat injury. He missed two weeks after that and then played in two more games before the end of the season.