Astros Rumors: How much is Jose Quintana worth?

How much does stinking in your first 11 games hurt your trade value? The Astros and Jose Quintana will find out soon.

Here we are, 58 games into the season, the Houston Astros are in a league of their own. They have a 14 game lead in the AL West and are still not satisfied with their team. Don’t get me wrong, they are walking on cloud 9 right now with the 42-16 record. They are in a position of looking ahead.

I think Peter Gammons put it best in a Tweet he sent earlier. “No matter how much the ‘Stros win, they keep working and will watch Quintana tonight and Sonny Gray Saturday at The Trop.” With the way Jose Quintana‘s season has gone down, is anyone surprised they Astros are still interested?

Don’t expect anything to happen soon, the Astros will focus on the MLB Draft next week first. They will likely send scouts out to watch potential trade targets over the next month plus. It sounded like they were really interested in Quintana this offseason.

What has changed since then?

Quintana has gone from Mr. Reliable to Mr. Unreliable in the first two months of the season. The White Sox were not willing to trade Quintana without Kyle Tucker and/or Francis Martes included. It was rumored that the White Sox were asking for Tucker, Martes, David Paulino, and Joe Musgrove. Whether that was true or not, the Astros dodged a bullet there.

If Quintana was on this Astros team, could he have had a better season? There are too many variables to factor in, but the bottom line is that he had not been good. Prior to tonight’s game, Quintana had a 2-7 record with a 5.60 ERA with 64 strikeouts in 64 1/3 innings. He has given up 10 homers and has walked 3.4 batters per nine innings pitched.

Stats aside, Nick Carfardo wrote this, “Now interested teams are backing off, wondering if there’s something physical going on.” Of course, the White Sox say nothing is going on and are willing to continue their fire sale from the offseason. If you can’t blame this on an injury, then what is going on with the 28-year-old left-hander?

An injury can change a season.

Speaking of left-handers, our own Dallas Keuchel wasn’t quite himself last year. It was later revealed that he had been hiding an injury. They shut him down and now he is back to his 2015 form. The same could be happening with Quintana at the moment.

If Gammons’ Tweet has any merit, why are they looking at Quintana and not others like Chris Archer, Johnny Cueto, and Justin Verlander? The answer is clear, Quintana and Gray both have question marks attached to them. Gray with his health the past two years and Quintana’s struggles. The Astros want to keep a close eye on these two for a while.

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At the start of the season, you can excuse his struggles as a slow start. He’s started 11 games this year, this has gone beyond a bad start and into a pattern. While he has had a few good appearances, they are overlooked with his bad starts. Why would the Astros even want this guy?

He is 28 with a proven track record. The only down year has been this year with him pitching 200 plus innings four out of his five seasons. Despite the struggles this year, his career ERA is still 3.55 at the time of writing. The best part is he is under team control until 2020. Next year guaranteed at $8.5 million and two option years for $22 million total.

Next: Don't expect the Astros to trade for Yu Darvish

Has his value decreased? Yes, but the White Sox still have a high asking price. The two sides will have to compromise. Let’s see what happens over the next month or so, but it seems like the Astros may still want Quintana. Unless the price is right, let’s wait it out.

***Stats from Baseball-Reference***