11:15pm: It’s a one-year, $6MM guarantee, reports Robert Murray of FanSided.
10:40pm: The Rockies have followed up their Michael Lorenzen and Tomoyuki Sugano signings with another free agent deal for a veteran starter. Colorado is in agreement with left-hander Jose Quintana on a deal, reports Jesse Rogers of ESPN. The signing is pending a physical.
Quintana signs on the eve of Spring Training after waiting until early March to put pen to paper last winter. He settled for a deferred $4.25MM guarantee with the Brewers that was probably below his expectations coming off a 3.75 ERA in 31 starts for the Mets. Quintana manage decent results in Milwaukee as well, allowing 3.96 earned runs per nine over 131 2/3 innings.
There weren’t a whole lot of encouraging underlying numbers. Quintana’s results have outstripped his peripherals for essentially four consecutive seasons. He has never been a power pitcher, but his already pedestrian velocity and swing-and-miss rates have dropped into his mid-30s. Last year’s 16% strikeout rate was his lowest since the 14% mark he posted in his 2012 rookie season. His sinker and four-seam fastball each land in the 90-91 mph range on average. None of the southpaw’s pitches miss many bats, and last season’s 6.9% swinging strike rate was the second lowest mark for a pitcher who reached 100 innings.
Although Quintana doesn’t have a huge ceiling at this stage of his career, he should raise the floor at the back of Warren Schaeffer’s rotation. The pitch-to-contact approach keeps his walks in check. He doesn’t have notable platoon splits and mixes five pitches (sinker, changeup, curveball, four-seam fastball, and slurve). The deeper arsenal seems to be of particular interest to the Rox’s front office and coaching staff. Lorenzen throws seven distinct pitches, while Sugano has a six-pitch mix.
“We’ve spoken about this internally a lot,” first-year pitching coach Alon Leichman told Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post last week. “We want big arsenals. We think big arsenals will be harder to game-plan against. You know, if a guy has six, seven pitches, that’s harder to game-plan for than if a guy has two or three, right? So we think that’s an advantage. The more weapons you have, the more random you can be.”
The Rockies have committed just over $19MM to add the trio of veteran starters. They’ll join Kyle Freeland as rotation locks. Ryan Feltner and Chase Dollander would probably compete for the fifth starter role as things stand. There’s a decent chance an injury during Spring Training clarifies things. Feltner missed the majority of last season with back issues. Quintana himself had a pair of IL stints for a shoulder impingement and calf strain, respectively.
While it remains arguably the worst rotation in the majors, the Rockies don’t want a repeat of last year’s historically awful performance. Colorado’s 2025 starting staff had a 6.65 ERA that was the highest in any full MLB season in history. This season’s group should at least be markedly better than that.
None of Lorenzen, Sugano or Quintana are likely to fetch much at the trade deadline even if they’re managing decent results away from Coors Field. They’re all sixth starters/swing types on contenders. There’s nevertheless value in having experienced arms around to take a few innings and work with Dollander and prospects Gabriel Hughes and Sean Sullivan, each of whom could be up at some point in 2026. They’re less likely to need to rely on McCade Brown and Tanner Gordon for early-season starts.
More to come.