Long-Term Lester
As I wrote back in October, it can be difficult for a player to shake a reputation. Fortunately, for the Red Sox, Jon Lester accomplished this very feat by showing everyone that he was a legitimate ace pitcher and not merely a cancer survivor with raw tools and potential. The 25-yr old lefty, who tossed a no-hitter in the 2008 season, put together a tremendous statline in 33 starts en route to +5.1 wins. Production like that translated to $23 mil at fair market value. Still well under club control, Lester of course earned nowhere near that salary.
His production did not go unrewarded for long, however, as he has just signed a 5-yr extension worth $30 mil, with a 6th year option valued at $13 mil. The extension buys out all of his arbitration-eligible seasons as well as his first two free agent years, and has the potential to keep the southpaw in Red Sox attire until he turns 31 years old.
Lester is tough to project thanks to just 144.1 innings logged in 2006-07 and the fact that the systems do not tend to recognize or reward breakout performances. The projection systems housed here suggest that Lester will take a decently sized step backwards, regressing to somewhere in the +3.5 to +4.1 win range. I’m a tad more optimistic and see him potentially as a +4.5 win pitcher if he can match the innings pitched total from last season.
Normally, with extensions, we break out the 40/60/80 calculator and determine the worth, but what intrigues me about this particular extension is that it has become hard to determine the true “winner” of deals this offseason. With the market as depressed as it has become, a deal that seemingly possesses a slam dunk pedigree such as this might be a bit more fair than meets the eye. Either way, the Red Sox have done a solid job of locking up two of their best players in Lester and Pedroia, players who will no-doubtedly outearn their salaries.
With the inconsistencies of Daisuke Matsuzaka, the potential that we have seen the best days of Josh Beckett, the question marks surrounding John Smoltz, Clay Buchholz, and Brad Penny, and increasing odds that Tim Wakefield will retire one of these years, the Red Sox have just locked up their best pitcher, ensuring themselves of an ace for the next several years. And if the aforementioned inconsistencies, question marks, and odds prove to be irrelevent with 2009 performance and beyond, Lester has the chance to headline one of the top rotations in the game for years to come.
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Wow. I thought I was higher on Lester than just about anybody. Turns out it’s a tie…
Just not buying it. His ’08 numbers scream out outlier to me, and while I think he’s a fine pitcher with the potential to throw an ERA in the low 4s or perhaps high 3s. I just can’t see him pitching near the 5.1 wins he had last year. I’m very comfortable with the projection systems on this one.
The projection systems are taking the time that he had undiagnosed cancer and then when he was recovering his strength as indicative of his normal performance. I think its pretty safe to say that it isn’t. Last year’s performance is more in line with his minor league performance (3.33 ERA in 484 minor league innings).
Where are yo getting the 3.5 to 4.1 range for his value? Chone, for example, has him as 27 runs above replacement. I could see bumping him up a 1/2 win or so, but we’re really just guessing at this point. And if we’re guessing 3.5 to 4.1 sounds high, because there are so few pitchers who are consistently that good.
Mattymatty said it best. Read his comment. Lester is someone that the systems are going to be off on, simply because his pre-2008 lines were fueled by an ailment that is gone, most likely for good now. He was worth +5.1 wins last year… I see that regressing in 2009 even though he is young enough to still improve, but a more appropriate estimation would be somewhere between +3.5 to +4.1 wins, not what the systems here, that use the last 3 yrs, suggest.