The St. Louis Cardinals were slated to have one of the most exciting trade deadlines in team history. Instead–we will keep this family friendly–they wet the bed.
What went from acquiring the 23-year-old superstar Juan Soto turned into Jose Quintana and Jordan Montogomery. The Cardinals filled a major void in the rotation, but missed out on a generational talent.
Left-handed pitchers are one of the most valuable commodities in all of MLB, and the Cardinals just traded for two of them.
Read more about the Cardinals trade deadline.
Who is Jose Quintana?
Jose Quintana is one of the most underrated starting pitchers in all of baseball, and on top of that, he is a lefty. St. Louis has had a depleted rotation for the latter half of the season and adding a middle of the rotation pitcher will pay dividends on the push to October.
Quintana is 33-years-old from Arjona, Colombia. He is the veteran this pitching staff needed, especially with Steven Metz and Jack Flaherty banged up to end out our rotation. Not that Matthew Liberatore and Andre Pallante were doing terribly, but they are not quite playoff-quality pitchers.
The lefty has been in the big leagues since 2012 with the Chicago White Sox and has since played for four other teams before heading over to Busch Stadium.
Quintana has played for four teams since 2020, but looks to find a home here in St. Louis. To acquire Quintana, the Cardinals gave up Johan Oviedo and 21-year-old Malcolm Nuñez, our No. 10 prospect in the system.
In 2022, Quintana is 3-5 with a 3.50 ERA, 1.272 WHIP and 89 strikeouts in 103.0 innings pitched. He has started in 20 games this season with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
One interesting stat is Quintana pitched much better in Pittsburgh than he did on the road. He had a 2.42 ERA compared to a 5.22 ERA away from home.
Batters only hit just over .230 against him on the season, and he will match up well as the third member of our three-headed monster of him, Adam Wainwright and Miles Mikolas.
What the Rotation May Look Like
If the St. Louis Cardinals wanted any shot at catching the Milwaukee Brewers to take home the NL Central title, they needed to add pitching. They went out and did just that, even if fans will have to bite their tongue–for quite possibly–years about Juan Soto.
The rotation will likely be, Adam Wainwright, Miles Mikolas, Jose Quintana, Jordan Montogmery and Dakota Hudson. I like the way Andre Pallante has been dealing in his rookie season, but it appears Oliver Marmol thinks he will succeed in high-leverage situations out of the bullpen.
Matthew Liberatore will likely be called up again from Triple-A Memphis but delegated to a bullpen role. Cardinals Nation would be thrilled for a Jack Flaherty return in 2022, but you cannot count on that whatsoever. The Cardinals made important acquisitions at the trade deadline.
Now that these trades happened, our pitching staff can continue to get healthy, our bullpen will improve and our offense will continue to rake. The road to the playoffs begins now.
