Last year, during Jose Quintana’s scintillating start to the season, where he posted a 2.30 ERA through his first 12 appearances (10 starts, 70.1 innings) and only walked 13 batters, I felt the White Sox were wise to ride the wave as long as they could.

Both because they were uncharacteristically short on viable starters at the time, but also because Quintana’s success didn’t make much sense. He was a young, raw left-hander without much stuff, without even a changeup, who had gone from showing good control in Double-A to being a deadly marksman in the majors.

The second-half fade where Quintana’s lack of polish and secondary offerings steepened the consequences of his miracle run of fastball command coming to an end (After his eight shutout innings in Boston on July 19, his four-seam fastball saw an approximately 3% dip in both strike and swinging strike percentage) seemed inevitable. It was nice that despite having more earned runs allowed than strikeouts over his final 12 starts, Quintana still escaped the season with a 3.76 ERA and that one warrior effort against Detroit in September.

But there’s another way to interpret Quintana’s season, or possibly many other ways, and the White Sox sure as hell didn’t read it in the way I just described. They seemed to see it more as a 23 year-old impressively holding his own after being thrusted into the highest level of competition and fighting through fatigue as he vaulted his single-season career-high in innings pitched by over 80.

Not only did the Sox not try to force out Quintana out of the rotation for the bat-missing stuff of Hector Santiago, but they ended any competition between the two before it could begin. Quintana has pushed off any undue attention to the decision by being excellent in spring training, but Ray Olmedo hit a home run Wednesday, Andy Gonzalez had the game-winning hit in a World Baseball Classic game and occurrences in March are very much meaningless.

But now there’s six years of Jose Quintana to work with, even if back-end starters don’t project to be something the organization has to treat like precious cargo over the next few years he’s provided a reason to watch and take an interest in his spring training work.

“I’m really locked in on my changeup,” said Quintana through translator and White Sox coach Lino Diaz. “I’m working on all areas, but the changeup is the concentration right now for me.”

The outside assumption is that any pitcher can be taught any pitch at any time, especially since Don Cooper keeps adding cutters (and Quintana even seems like a possible adopter, given his reliance on working the inner half). But Quintana’s changeup existed enough on a show-me level to view it as and already in-progress pitch that he could move into his already limited arsenal rather than keeping it as a gimmick.

The amount of success Quintana had last year just plugging his fastball around and toggling between passable but far from dominant curves and sliders suggests he doesn’t need Chris Sale-level fade on his changeup to offer him a greater hold on the plate. Getting hitters to peer more at the arm-side will allow Quintana to do more of what he does best–sneaking his fastball on the hands of right-handed hitters.

It’s odd to think about Quintana improving upon last season because even with tweaks and adjustments, his pedigree and raw materials suggest last year’s 3.76 ERA should rank among his best performances and six years of team control is probably more than the Sox will find use for. But this line of thinking presupposes that we understand completely why Quintana was successful last season. “Variance” is always a great bet to be the underlying cause, but lacks the certainty it had with such incidents as “Brent Lillibridge” and “Zach Stewart’s near-perfect game.”

Actually having to think about whether the fifth starter might be good is, of course, better than most.

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• Better than expected health thanks to the work of Herm Schneider
• Better than expected pitching performance, especially from back-end starters coached up to competence

At least twice a week, pitchers enter the training room for 45 minutes and participate in 32-35 exercises aimed at strengthening a pitcher’s shoulder. Schneider accepts nothing less than perfection, which means players can’t listen to headphones and they need to display good posture and textbook form.

The team’s trainer since 1979, Schneider asks pitchers to “make deposits” to allow them to comfortably make withdrawals every time they pitch.”

“In dealing with Sale and rookie Jose Quintana, who completed a career-high 136 1/3 innings, Cooper said he looked for a number of different warning signs. A varied arm slot, decreased velocity and the way the ball comes out of a pitcher’s hand are indicators. A pitcher’s body language sometimes can provide a nonverbal form. Yet another comes from the response of players when asked questions, which Hahn said helped tremendously in Sale’s case.

Because Sale offered up how he felt, the White Sox gave him extra days in between starts or skipped him when they could and now they’re reaping the benefits as the second-year starter is on the same schedule as other White Sox starters this spring.”

So the best way for a pitcher to be termed as exciting is to have velocity (combing our love of speed, danger, and high numbers!) and strikeouts (the clearest example of individual dominance).  Essentially, the ability to blow away the competition to the point where everyone has to take notice.

Chris Sale has that.  He’s lost a few miles on his fastball since joining the rotation, but still sits 92-94 mph, and has hit 97 at points this year.  More importantly, through 4 starts and 26 innings, Sale is striking out a better-per-frame.

That rate is yanked up by an April 20th start against the Mariners–who clearly weren’t having a great weekend–where Sale whiffed 11 batters, but that was also the only time his slider flashed its full force and capability.  Another one of Sale’s charms is hes a work in progress.

While the White Sox have fielded some pretty beastly rotations in the past few years, starters with that skill set rarely find their way to the South Side.  High-velo strikeout pitches are rarely undervalued in trades, or milling about as unwanted reclamation projects for Don Cooper.  Jose Contreras led the much-revered 2005 rotation with 6.8 K’s per 9 innings.

Part of this issue is that the league average for strikeouts has risen by one a game since the Sox won a World Series, and everyone looks like a soft-tosser in retrospect, but the formula is still there.  While they’ve stopped short of becoming the Twins, Chicago starters have gotten by limiting walks, finding out some way in hell to keep the ball within U.S. Cellular Field, and other unexciting things.

The last Sox starter to eclipse 8 K/9 for the season was Edwin Jackson’s final 11 outings after being traded for in 2010.  For an actual full season, Javy Lopez met the mark every year throughout his tenure on the South side, but was only regarded as appointment viewing by masochists.  Freddy Garcia and Jose Contreras both delivered strikeouts in droves in 2004, but those were also partial-season bursts.

Esteban Loaiza’s improbable 2003 season that saw him post a career-year at 30 and start the All-Star game featured 8.2 K/9 and waves of cutters is the standout, and it’s safe to say he was must-watch during to his Cy Young pursuit.

Due to the offensive explosion of the 90′s, the next example doesn’t come until the early years of Jason Bere, and drawing parallels between Sale and Bere might be neat if it weren’t terrifying.

To bring the comparisons back to friendlier territory, Sale offers the first chance that Sox fans have had since John Danks to see a first-time major league starter grow and mature.  And he’ll do so with much of the franchise’s weight rested on his already over-stressed shoulders.

Under control through 2016 and not eligible for arbitration till after next season, Sale offers one of the few immediate chances for this prospect-starved organization to get top-level production for under market value.  The expensive and soon-to-be outgoing Peavy might be flashier right now, but Sale growing into a dominant starter means more for the long-term health of the club.

Sale’s biggest challenge as a starter is, and will continue to be neutralizing the platoon split.  His slider and funky delivery make most at-bats vs. lefties a futile enterprise, but his treatment of hitters has been fairly equal so far.  Nevertheless, the Cleveland lineup should offer plenty of opportunities for Sale to face southpaws on Tuesday.

RF Shin-Soo Choo is out with a hamstring injury, but that only means that CF Michael Brantley can’t be benched from the lefty starter now.  1B Casey Kotchmann, DH Travis Hafner, 2B Jason Kipnis, and 3B Jack Hannahan are all lefties, but to hide them the  Indians would need to provide at-bats to far inferior infielders Jason Donald and Jose Lopez, or slide Carlos Santana to 1st base and play the all-glove Lou Marson behind the plate.  Johnny Damon could make his debut; Johnny Damon is still–according to all reports–left-handed.

It could be a good night to see Sale at his best.

Follow James Fegan on Twitter @ JRFegan.  Also check out his full-time, daily blog, White Sox Observer