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Guess it's time to sit Lester for Stults! lol

So the Cubs have the Lester of 2012 for 155mil? Brutal! He's like, brainless. How do you not at least step off the rubber when you know they are going on first move...seeing that he can't throw to friggin' first base. It's quite embarrassing to even watch him pitch when a runner is on.

Cubs tie it and their Ace gives it right back up...this guys a #3 at best...should this be under the Venting Misery thread?

Lester is a very good - but not great - pitcher in my opinion. I think the Cubs way overpaid for him, but he will get better and be solid (but not elite) for them.

Took a quick look on Fangraphs at his stats, and he has not been as bad as it may seem at first blush. For instance:

K/9: 9.97
BB/9: 2.08

BABIP: .424
LOB%: 58.3%

ERA: 6.23
FIP: 2.11
xFIP: 2.25

To be sure, some numbers are over-rated, and he certainly has been hit hard on occasion so far. Still, some of these numbers should normalize ... maybe.

Mike

Edwin Jackson and Jon Lester. Maybe they should let somebody besides Theo choose their next free agent pitcher.

Personally, I don't feel too sorry for anyone who picked Lester. A career year in 2014, by far the lowest WHIP he's ever had. It wasn't hard to envision his whip going back up to his career average of 1.28 or even higher. He's 31 years old, changed leagues, and just got a massive payday.

On the flip side there are those (yea, like myself) who picked Evan Gattis right before he got traded. And now he can't hit.

I only have Lester on one team, when I grabbed him at 5.11 in a very early DC draft. As his price escalated during drafting season, I backed away. I still think he will turn things around and have a decent/solid year, but I did not see him in that group of 10-12 top tier SPs. The Cubs defense may wind up impacting his value more than the shift to the NL. We'll see.

Mike

Bronx Yankees wrote:Lester is a very good - but not great - pitcher in my opinion. I think the Cubs way overpaid for him, but he will get better and be solid (but not elite) for them.

Mike

I concur with this assessment. As a Red Sox fan I appreciate Lester's contributions to two championship clubs. He's a gamer and he's durable. That said, he is not an elite pitcher. He's in the good-to-very good range. The Red Sox tried to re-sign him to a contract commensurate to that level of ability, but the market exploded and they wound up trading him last summer. Boston offered $135 million this off season, which was also way too much, yet they were trumped by the Cubs' $155 million.

I hope Jon is successful in Chicago. The Cubs are so ridiculously overdue to win a World Series and this crop of young players may just be the group that will get it done. Lester is going to have to be a big part of that effort. Yes they overpaid for him, but it's not quite an Edwin Jackson scenario. I never understood what Theo was thinking when he signed Jackson to that contract.

Kevin

Lester is a slow starter every year out so i think its a bit early to be jumping ship or calling him out as draft bust. now im not sure anyone but theo would disagree that financially he will probably be a big burden to the cubs down the line. his intangibles, like his incredible work ethic, were worth a little extra in my opinion but i certainly think he is being over paid.

revive this thread in a month and lets see where we sit. i say he keeps getting better. i feel a bit more positive about him than say strasburg who was drafted earlier. lots of slow starts out there. oh and the closer situation this season seems like its going to be the bloodiest yet.

I also feel sorry for those who drafted Adam Wainwright -- again like myself ...

Lester is a bad pick, in my opinion.

Wainwright is bad luck.
Gattis is bad luck
Saltalamachia hitting damn near a 'Blutarsky" --- that would be zero.zero for those who haven't seen "Animal House" is bad luck
Jansen missing first month of season is bad luck

Sorry, needed to vent this morning. Of all the things I was worried about with my auction team, Wainwright popping an Achilles tendon while running out of the batters box was about the last concern.

Lester did come back and have a decent game, although a 4.5 ERA is not that good (but way better than he's been doing so far)...and gotta like the 10K's. But being in the NL, with lots of small ball and stolen base attempts, he could get run on like crazy. It's a good thing after Hamilton, the Reds are slooowwww! lol

That's crazy what happened to Wainright, luckily I didn't draft him in any of my leagues...but I do have J. Garcia and Marco Gonzalez, I wonder if one of them gets the call.