Should We Worry About Lester?
Jon Lester has been one of the most consistently excellent starting pitchers over the past three seasons, posting ERAs in a narrow range between 3.21 and 3.41. In April of this season, he opened the first month in typical fashion, posting a 2.52 ERA. However, May has been a completely different story as his ERA has shot up to 3.94 after an uncharacteristic 5.50 ERA during the month. Though he made two starts in which he only allowed a run in one and shut out his opponent in the other, he has allowed four runs, five runs twice, and seven runs in his other May starts. Do fantasy owners have any reason to worry?
The first thing that stands out is that he was rather fortunate in May, benefiting from a .257 BABIP and nearly 87% LOB%, which led to an xFIP 0.74 runs above his actual ERA. In May, his luck turned the other way, as his xFIP was actually 1.68 runs below his ERA. Though his April and May performances appear to be night and day when just looking on the surface, his xFIPs of 3.26 and 3.82, respectively, are much closer. These metrics suggest that he did not indeed struggle dramatically in May and actually did not perform too much worse in May than he did in April.
Of course, if a pitcher is not 100% healthy, then his ERA is unlikely to end up anywhere near his xFIP, so what initially appears to simply be bad luck is actually just representative of a pitcher not currently of Major League quality, given his lack of complete health. Though 6.0 shutout innings was sandwiched between his poor starts, his bad streak began in his May 10th start against the Jays. A drop in velocity or loss of the strike zone might be a hint that Lester is in fact hurting. Let’s see if this has actually happened.
First, the good news for Lester owners and Red Sox fans: his velocity has actually increased in his last five starts, though it still remains below last season’s 93.3 mile per hour speed. This is not too much of a surprise, since his strikeout rate was actually much higher in May, so one would not expect velocity to be an issue.
On the other hand, Lester has thrown four of his five pitches for strikes less frequently during his last five starts than his first seven. This would certainly support his increased walk rate in May. When pitchers suffer a sudden loss of control, the first reaction is typically the thought of an elbow injury. We haven’t heard a peep about any possible injury or soreness so it would be difficult to speculate that this was the case.
After looking at the data, I am confident that I now have the answer. It seems as if baseball fans and fantasy owners expect every player to perform exactly as projected in every sample size you look at. ZiPS projected a 3.25 ERA this year for Lester, so fans expect him to post a 3.25 ERA every single month. We stats guys sometimes take flack for ignoring the human element of the game, yet it is the casual fans that ignore this aspect without even realizing it. Baseball is a game of streaks, peaks and valleys, since players are, of course, human beings. Since they are not robots, they will have months of bad luck, months of good luck, months of poor play, and months of strong play. Nobody performs in a straight line.
Sure, Lester’s control has been a bit off in May, but it was over just 29.1 innings (ignoring his first start of the month which was good)! Nothing in his seasonal statistical profile, or even what I parsed out above, truly stands out as a red flag that should give owners any less than the utmost confidence in a pitcher that was likely drafted as a top 10 starter in every league. So settle down Lester worry warts, he will be fine.
I dunno Mike, I was expecting a little more than, “he’s human”. Especially after you took me through all the worry and speculation about arm injuries and dropped velocity. And I don’t know ANY stats guys, myself included, that ever expect a player to perform exactly at their projections.
Personally, I wasn’t worried about Lester until I saw this article on Fangraphs telling me why I was worried and then assuring me not to.
Odd choice for an article.
Yeah, I have to agree with Spandex here. In general, as a Red Sox fan and an owner of Lester in fantasy, it hadn’t even crossed my mind to be worried. 2009 he had a 5.86 ERA in May (after a 5.40 in Mar/April). 2010 he had a 4.71 ERA in Mar/April. So first off, saying ‘he opened the first month in typical fashion’ (referencing his 2.52 ERA in April) isn’t accurate, and his 3.94 ERA thus far is lower than where he was in 2009. I think most people who follow the Red Sox and/or Lester closely understand that he’ll hit some speed bumps the first few months but fully expect him to have his numbers by the end of the year.
Funny, I had no idea people were worried either, however on the Fantasy Baseball Roundtable podcast I do weekly, our host from FantasyPros911 said he had been getting e-mails from readers who were worried about Lester. So, this was in response to those apparent concerns.
Spandex- the assumption that fantasy owners expect a player to always perform at their projection was aimed more at the less stat-oriented. Which, of course, is somewhat foolish on this site since nearly everyone here i stat-oriented.
Ray- Are you arguing that 2 years of poor April ERAs suggests Lester is inherently a slow starter? I would argue that we need a ton more data and at least some explanation before coming to that conclusion. So the 2.52 ERA being typical is because Lester is a top pitcher and it is typical for top pitchers to pitch well.
I’m surprised this article doensn’t discuss his late-season control issues from a year ago. To me, Lester’s BB% is the key number. In the 2H of last year, his rate was 4 per 9, and this year he is showing more of the same.
We know Lester’s ERA will come down. More nights than not, he will flash ace form. But unless his walk rate comes back to ’09 levels, he won’t pitch as deep into games or be as consistently dominant as he has been in the past. Those shellings–like last year vs. TOR and CWS–will continue to wreck his overall numbers and drive his fantasy owners mad.
Well his control was fine in April, so it has really been 4 of his last 5 starts that the control issues have cropped up.
I already traded Lester in one of my leagues. It was a hard move to make because I never owned him and thought he’d be an absolute stud this year but that hasn’t been the case so far. His control has been off to this point but I didn’t trade him because I lost faith in him. It’s only an 8 team league and I had Felix, Pineda, JJ, and Beckett so I decided to move him and Pedroia for Jose Reyes, think it’s paid off to this point.
I actually consider this a great time to buy low on Lester, I have a few offers out there for him. He will rebound nicely. Here’s a copy and paste for a comment i made the other day on a different site.
” Just did a little research on Lester. His career SLG % is .370, however it was .476 in May. also, his career BABIP is .304, while it was 3.57 in May. Seems to me like he is getting a little unlucky. His k/9 in May was 9.8, which is actually higher then his career average (8.4). Another thing i saw stick out was his BB/9 in May was 4.3, which is what is killing him right now, since he owns a 3.4 BB/9 career average.
His control is a little worrisome,, but all signs point to him rebounding easily. the only other month in his career that he had an ERA higher than it was in May 2011 was May 2009 and Lester ended up having a solid year in 2009. 2009 stats: 203 IP, 15W’s, 225 K’s, 3.412 ERA, 1.2309 Whip. I’m buying him right now, and hoping to get him for about .75 on the dollar.”
Just traded him for Car Go, bad move?
I expected CarGo to be a bust this year, simply based on not earning his draft value. However, even a busted CarGo should go at least 20/20, and hitting cleanup, provide nearly 100 runs and RBIs. So, I think your trade is fine.
Thanks Mike, I expected CarGo to be a bust as well this year, but for whatever reason found the offer too tempting to pass up. I never owned Lester before this season, I definitely enjoyed my run even though as you stated he has yet to be truly dominant. If offense wasn’t down across the board I almost certainly would have passed on it. I also took a flyer on Scott Baker this week as you suggested in a previous article.
T Hal, I’d caution you against asking that question without sharing the rest of your roster and league format. It’s impossible to say without knowing those details.
I just came across this article about Jon Lester perhaps relying too much on his cutter and not enough on his 12-6 yakker!
http://firebrandal.com/2011/06/01/whats-wrong-with-lester/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+firebrandal+%28Fire+Brand+of+the+American+League%29
Standard ten team mixed league H2H Points: total bases, r/rbi +1, with hitting k’s -1 bb/hbp +.5, sb +2, cs-2. Pitching is .9 for ip, 1 for K, 6 for W, 1 for K, 3 for Quality Start, -3 for loss, +5 for CG, +10 for shutout. Roster as follows
C: Wieters
1B: Hosmer
2B: Zobrist
3B: Longoria
SS: Castro
OF: Matt Kemp
OF: Justin Upton
OF: Andrew McCutchen
OF: Carlos Gonzales
UT: Ichiro
UT: David Ortiz
Ben: B.J. Upton (this move was to send him to the bench he strieks out a ton often having negative point games)
Ben: Aramis Ramirez
Ben: Rafael Furcal
Ben: Brett Laurie
DL: Ike Davis
Now here is where it gets more interesting…Obviously other than Lester I waited on pitching on Draft Day I took Felix in the 2nd round but traded him for Kemp the day Longoria got hurt.
SP: Roy Oswalt
SP: Sean Marcum
SP Jeremy Hellickson
SP: Max Scherzer
SP: Alexi Ogando
RP: Carlos Zambrano (He has eligibilty here in my league, so does Alexi)
RP: Craig Kimbrel
Subs: Scott Baker, Joel Hanrahan, Chris Perez, Phillip Humber
Would it be advisable to look to trade the older Upton for another SP? Or stand pat knowing I have a capable sub if one of my starters were to get injured. If it is advisable to move him who would you target? Thanks for all the help.
Sidenote: My entire bench is made up of waiver claims, every year many players end up dropped that should not be.