Jon Lester, Fantasy Ace
As a cancer survivor, Jon Lester is a great human interest story and one of the easiest players to root for in the game. However, as hyperbolic as it might sound, the Red Sox lefty might just be underrated in fantasy circles heading into the 2009 season. Here are some reasons why the 25 year-old should be high on your draft list:
Improved Peripherals
In his first full season in the majors, Lester posted a solid 2.3 K/BB ratio and a 3.64 Fielding Independent ERA. Control had always been something of an issue for Jon as he climbed the minor league ladder (he walked about 3.8 batters per nine innings), and remained so during stints with Boston in 2006 (4.76 BB/9) and 2007 (4.43 BB/9). In ’08, however, he pared that walk rate down to 2.82 per nine innings.
His K rate (6.5 per nine) was essentially league average, but he did fool more batters as the year progressed. After posting 5.9 K/9 during the first half of the season, Lester struck out 7.4 per nine innings during the home stretch.
More Groundballs
After posting groundball rates of 40.6% in ’06 and 34.4% in ’07, Lester improved his percentage of worm burners to 47.5. The reason for the increase would appear to be an interesting hybrid sinker pitch that Lester picked up. Earlier this offseason, I examined Jon’s pitch F/X data and found the following:
“I found out that what we’re seeing on Lester’s chart is actually the combination of a four-seam and one-seam fastball. That’s right, one-seam. Lester throws an offshoot of a sinker, gripped in an unusual manner along just one seam of the baseball…Lester’s use of the one-seamer may also explain a pretty big uptick in his groundball percentage.”
If the uptick in grounders holds, Lester shouldn’t have many issues with the long ball.
Improved Velocity
If there’s one concern with Lester heading in to the 2009 season, it’s his rather dramatic increase in innings pitched. The 6-2, 190 pounder was one of the “Verducci Effect” candidates that we identified back in December, as he tossed 74 more frames in 2008 than he did the previous campaign. While velocity is just one sector of what goes into pitching, Lester did throw harder as the season progressed, suggesting that he was not tiring on his way to a career-high workload:
Lester’s fastball velocity by month:
April: 90.8 MPH
May: 91.5 MPH
June: 91.8 MPH
July: 92.4 MPH
Aug: 92.5 MPH
Sept: 93.7 MPH
There’s a lot to like in Jon Lester. Better strike zone control, a devastating cutter/curve combo, improved fastball velocity, a higher percentage of grounders induced..the list goes on. Don’t be surprised if this southpaw puts his hat in the ring of AL Cy Young contenders in 2009.
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190 pounder? Listed weights are really a joke.
Lester has to improve his skills even further to even post a sub-4.00 ERA again this season (let alone match his low 3.00 ERA of 2008). His xFIP was 4.19 last year, nearly a full run higher than his actual ERA. He has to not only hold his big gains in control and ground ball rate, but also increase his strikeout rate, and that still means his ERA will rise to the high 3′s. Combine the performance questions with a huge innings spike, and he’s sure to disappoint owners.
I agree with Mike. Lester is not likely to maintain the same kind of control he exhibited last year. He also had a very high strand rate. I’d say Lester is primed for regression this year.
How does X-Fip account for the increase in velocity through out the season? Also how do the trends account for the addition of the sinking fastball? Thanks to pitch f/x data we can see that Lester was a lot more legit last season then the numbers and previous trends would lead us to believe. I hope you guys continue to undervalue him on draft day. Makes winning that much easier : )
While typically a spike in innings from year-to-year would be a worrisome number for most young pitchers, I think Lester is an abnormal case for that rule to apply to. He only started 11 games in 2007, still slowly regaining body strength after having gone through chemotherapy for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
In 2008, as Dave points out, Lester was able to improve throughout the year and play consistently for a full season. As his fastball velocity shows, he was getting stronger. I do think that once Lester hit the 215-220 IP last year though (with the playoffs factored in, Lester pitched about 236 innings), he did start to wear down a bit, especially in the ALCS.
So while a slight regression could be possible from Lester, I think the lefty will be fine in 2009, possibly even improving as he gets another year away from cancer treatments and building up muscle again. I wouldn’t be surprised though if the Sox find a reason for him to sit on the DL for 2-3 starts sometime this summer, much like they do with Dice-K and Beckett in order to save them for Sept. and October.
The entire reason you use component ERA type stats is to understand what really happened, ERA itself is a borderline useless stat for a single season because of how much randomness there is in it.
Lester pitched like a 4 ERA pitcher last year and given the risks I don’t see why you should pay for something better than that this year. He isn’t likely to have a 77% LOB again or allow only 7% HR/FB. I’d say the projections on fangraphs have pretty much nailed him. Somewhere between a 3.78 and 4.21 ERA depending on how many of the gains he keeps.
Is it just me, or does it seem like his “one seam sinker” is probably his cutter? Judging by the grip, it should be moving to his glove side, which is the opposite of what the sinker does.
What’s the predictive value of X-FIP? Why do you think it’s a better predictor than FIP, which was a very nice 3.64 (and Lester has outperformed his FIP for his career). Do you think Lester will be stronger or weaker, being another year removed from his cancer?
Lester’s a good bet to outperform his projections, which are already pretty good.
xFIP normalises the rate at which outfield fly balls leave the park, which is known to be unstable from year to year and show comparatively little variance across the major league level. While it wouldn’t be completely unthinkable or unprecedented to see Lester continue at or around the 9% level, the odds are heavily in the favour of regression.
While it could well be argued that he got slightly lucky last year with his HR rate and that his control is not historically established, we need to look more at his dramatic improvement after April. His SO rate and control were excellent in each of the last 5 months, elite level in a few of them. The improvement in his MPH per month cited above tends to support this. This is a far more important consideration when evaluating a young pitcher. Nolasco of Florida had a similar late season breakthrough, though with even a better SO rate but much higher HR rate.
Lester is about as good an example of why just looking at stats and making predictions off them is not always the best idea. He was coming back from Cancer during the year and clearly not at full strength until perhaps the last few months. It’s pretty easy to see this by looking at his Velocity numbers per month bear this out, I think theres a very good chance he will continue to average about 94mph on the Fastball as opposed to the 90ish he posted during07 and early 08.
Also he made a huge jump go after the 10 starts 08. His first 10 starts in 08 he posted a 29bb, 33k in 57ip yet posted a great ERA, clearly at this point he was a very lucky pitcher and a boderline major league quality one in truth
After that he became a differentitcher as hiscontrolimprovedfrom bad to above average and hisstuff kept getting better as he gothis strength back.
He posted 42bb, 135k and 9hr in 170ip including the playoffs, thats basically a full season with superb ratios. I think the chances are The Lester you saw who was one of the top few Leftys in he game during September and October is the real one, if thats the case he should be a huge bargain, even if he does not continue to be one of the top 2-4 Hardest throwing Lefty SP in baseball his control clearly improved a ton and barring injury should post a k/9ip over 7 and bb/9 under 3.0 along with good HR rates.
If he Continues to pitch like the guy we sawin Sept/October he could easily be among the top 5 SP in baseball over the next 5years.
Also his Sinker is clearly a Sinker, not his cut fastball, they are completly different pitchs.
Jon Lester is a great young pitcher but there is someone else who is just as good but doesn’t get nearly as enough credit simply because he doesn’t play on the east coast. That player is John Danks. Both guys are young, up and coming, and have great stuff. Their 2008 stats are almost identical but Lester gets bumped up in drafts simply because of the east coast media. So if you miss out on Lester, know that John Danks can be had in a couple rounds later for almost the same stats.
Fantasy ace is right. The only place Lester is an ace is IN YOUR DREAMS.