How many pitchers have their best big league season at 30 years old? It happens, but how often? How often does that best season come in a guys ninth year in the big leagues? Jon Lester fits both those categories to a T. The Cubs gave Lester a six year deal worth $155 million under the belief that he will be the pitcher he was in 2014 moving forward, even though he had never been that pitcher before. The move to the NL has panties in a bunch for many in the fantasy game. Is it time to start the panty raid or should you slow play things and just hope to get a glimpse of your sweetheart in the halls on her way to her dorm room?
THE MINORS
2002: Taken in the second round of the 2002 Entry Draft by the Red Sox.
TOTALS (2002-07): 32-31, 3.33 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 8.3 K/9 over 483.2 IP
THE MAJORS
As an established player, here are his season by season fantasy exploits.
2006: 7-2, 4.76 ERA, 1.65 WHIP, 6.64 K/9 in 81.1 IP
2007: 4-0, 4.57 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 7.14 K/9 in 63 IP
2008: 16-6, 3.21 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 6.50 K/9 in 210.1 IP
2009: 15-8, 3.41 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 9.96 K/9 in 203.1 IP
2010: 19-9, 3.25 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 9.74 K/9 in 208 IP
2011: 15-9, 3.47 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 8.55 K/9 in 191.2 IP
2012: 9-14, 4.82 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 7.28 K/9 in 205.1 IP
2013: 15-8, 3.75 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 7.47 K/9 in 213.1 IP
2014: 16-11, 2.46 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 9.01 K/9 in 219.2 IP
THE SKILLS
You can tell from the intro that I'm tossing water on this out of control fire. Before I do though, let's give those flames some oxygen.
Lester is durable. He's thrown at least 191 innings the last seven years. Only five others have done that: Mark Buehrle, Cole Hamels, Felix Hernandez, James Shields and Justin Verlander.
Lester wins games. In six of the last seven seasons he's won at least 15 games. He is the only man in baseball to have done that.
Durability and consistently winning ball games. There are few better than Lester.
Then we start running into some issues though.
For his career Lester has a 3.58 ERA and 1.28 WHIP.
The league averages last season were 3.74 and 1.28
Further...
In two of the last three seasons Lester has been worse than his career ERA.
In two of the last three seasons Lester has been worse than his career WHIP.
In three of the last four seasons Lester's ERA has been higher than 3.45.
In three of the last four seasons Lester's WHIP has been higher than 1.25.
'But Ray, he was the bell of the ball last year.'
True.
Let's compare his 2012-13 to 2014.
12-13: 4.28 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 7.37 K/9, 2.90 BB/9
2014: 2.46 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 9.01 K/9, 1.97 BB/9
If we saw growth like that in a pitchers third season maybe we would say - he figured out how to pitch OR his skills finally came together. Be honest though, when that happens in a pitchers 9th season should we just blindly except that level as the new baseline or should we dig deeper to try and figure out how the guy went from being Jason Hammel to Felix Hernandez?
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STRIKEOUTS
For his career Lester has an 8.22 K/9 mark. However, he failed to record even 7.5 strikeouts per season in either 2012 or 2013. How many times does a pitcher go three seasons between K/9 marks of over 9.00 when that K/9 mark dips to 7.74 over those three interviening seasons? Should also be noted that after 3-straight years with a swinging strike rate under 8.8 percent that the mark jumped to 9.9 percent in 2014, well above his career 9.2 percent rate.
WALKS
Lester walked 3.59 batters per nine in 2010. In each of the last four seasons that number has come down. That doesn't explain what happened in 2014 though. Here are his marks the past four seasons: 3.52, 2.98, 2.83 and 1.97. He posted a mark in '14 that was nearly a batter better than any season previously and it was also more than a batter below his career mark (3.07).
HOMERS
Lester posted the second best HR/9 mark of his career last season at 0.66 per nine. It was the first time in four seasons the mark was under 0.80.
BABIP
Lester has been extremely consistent in this category. For his career the mark is .301. From 2007-14 the mark has never been higher than .312. The mark he posted in 2014 was .299.
BATTED BALL
Lester has a 19.3 percent career line drive rate. The number the last three seasons has been higher. In 2014 it was 20.6 percent.
Lester has a 46.8 percent ground ball rate for his career. The mark has been under that career total the last two seasons and last year it was a seven year low at 42.4 percent.
Lester has a 33.8 percent fly ball rate for his career. The mark has been above that the last two seasons including a seven year high at 37.0 percent. Lester also has a 9.4 percent HR/F ratio for his career. The 7.2 percent mark he posted last season was a six year low.
Lester has a 1.38 GB/FB ratio for his career. That mark has been under his career rate the last two seasons and his 1.14 rate last season was a seven year low.
So Lester gave up more liners, more fly balls and fewer ground balls than normal in 2014. Yet his numbers were the best of his career...
SO WHAT HAPPENED?
How did Lester jack up his strikeout rate, drop his walk rate and slash his ratios so significantly in 2014? As we've seen, things like his BABIP remained the same while other measurements like his batted ball ratios, went in the wrong direction. Yet he had that success. Perhaps the pitch data will help?
PITCH DATA
Here is the PITCHf/x data.
Lester three his fastball 41 percent of the time in 2014. His career level is 43.4 percent. He threw that heater at 91.5 mph... a career year low by the way.
Lester threw his cutter 24.9 percent of the time, an increase over his career mark of 18.2 percent. The mark was also substantially above his 13.3 and 16.1 percent marks from 2012 and 2013. The cutter resulted in a .248 batting average against, an 8-year high. He also was hit for a .686 OPS on the pitch, another career-high. So he threw this pitch more often but had worse results with it than "normal."
Lester threw his sinker 15.0 percent of the time a slight increase over his 13.3 percent mark. At the same time it was well below the 28 and 23 percent marks he posted in 2012 and 2013. Good idea to cut down the use of this pitch since he was battered to the tune of a .331 batting average on it in 2014.
Lester bumped his curveball rate to 16.4 percent which is a slight increase over his 14.3 percent career mark. That was an increase on the rate from the previous three seasons (13.6, 14.4 and 12.0). For the first time in four seasons his batting average against on the pitch was under .200 (it had been .226 and .244 the previous two seasons. Last year it was .160). Still, his line drive rate on the pitch was above his career rate and his ground ball rate was below his career mark. He somehow didn't allow a single homer on the pitch despite throwing it 572 times.
So Lester cut down his sinker and change up rates greatly while significantly increasing the use of his cutter in 2014. The results led to the successful effort that he put up on the board for the Red Sox. Interesting...
BALLPARK/ LEAGUE
The move to the National League will undoubtedly help Lester. As for how Wrigley will play, there's some uncertainty there. Don't know if you've heard or not, but the outfield bleachers are still under construction and no one is quite sure how that will change the way the wind whips through the park. Let's compare 2014 Park Factors from Fangraphs.
Wrigley (Cubs): 102 Overall, 101 HR
Fenway (Sox): 104 Overall, 95 HR
Read it like this. 100 is average. Under 100 favors pitchers. Over 100 favors batters. Basically Wrigley was a wee bit better, but not as much as some might think.
CONCLUSION
I laid out a lot of data in this profile. Here's a quick synopsis.
(1) Lester pitched better than he ever had in 2014.
(2) Lester turned around a downward 2-year trend.
(3) Lester changed his pitch distribution significantly in 2014.
(4) Many of the measures we look at were very similar or slightly worse than normal in 2014.
Where does the above leave us? A bit confused actually. It's pretty hard to pinpoint a key for the success he showed last season. The totality of the data does not support a full repeat in 2015 even with the move to the National League. Don't draft Lester as your ace, but he's a solid SP2 option.
10 team lg: He's a low level SP2 in this format. His health makes him a solid target.
12 team lg: A mid level SP2. The out of control good ratios from '14 though hold the key to his value. Just how much will he give back in 2015?
15 team lg: An elite SP2. With 200+ innings and a move to the NL, he's likely to produce a strong strike out mark, and with all the innings he's always likely to put up solid win totals.
NL-only: He's an SP1 here. His health and track record suggest confidence when bidding, though as noted previously, you shouldn't be expecting any growth or a full repeat of his 2014 effort.