Player Profile: Jon Lester
February 8th, 2013 | by Ray Flowers |
From 2008-11 Jon Lester of the Red Sox was one of the best lefties in baseball. Not only that, he was actually one of the better pitchers regardless of the arm he used to chuck pitches toward the plate. During that four year run Lester won at least 15 games each season with an ERA under 3.50 with a WHIP in the 1.20′s each year. He also struck out at least 180 batters over the final three seasons. In fact, he was an elite arm if you compare him to all other hurlers in baseball over those four seasons.
His 65 wins were tied with Cliff Lee for 4th in baseball.
His 3.33 ERA was 13th in baseball (min. 600 IP).
His 8.68 K/9 mark was 8th in baseball.
His total of 784 Ks was 8th in baseball.
His total of 813.1 innings was 18th in baseball.
Give that track record of success, and the fact that he was just 28 years old last season, what can explain his disastrous ’12 campaign that was by far the worst of his career? We’ll investigate.
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Lester bombed last season, worse than anyone could have imagined. His record reversed itself, he went 9-14, his ERA exploded to a career worst 4.82, his WHIP shot up to 1.38 and his K mark fell to 166 (a four year low). One of the few positives was that he continued to take the ball every five games as he made 33 starts covering 205.1 innings. So why the downturn in production from a guy who appeared to be lined up to have a lot of success in 2012?
Lester has been an impressive strikeout arm with 225 Ks in back-to-back seasons in 2009-10. That number dipped a bit in 2011 as his 9.80 K/9 mark from 2009-10 fell to 8.55. That number further regressed last year falling to 7.28. Did he suffer a velocity dip? Nope. His fastball was 92.6 mph last year, a tenth above his career number. In fact, his cutter was thrown harder than ever before at 90.3 mph. He also deployed the pitches in the same manner.
Fastball 52 percent of the time (career 54 percent).
Cutter 22 percent of the time (career 21 percent).
A velocity loss doesn’t explain things.
When he threw the ball in the strike zone batters made more contact that ever before, 91 percent of the swings, though his career mark is 89 percent so it’s not a huge difference. There was also a four year high in the contact rate of batters swinging at all pitches inside/outside the strike zone at 80.4 percent, but again that only two percent above his career mark (79.3). There’s also this – Lester walked 2.98 batters per nine innings, a three year low after back-to-back seasons of a mark in the 3.50′s. He lost some K’s but also cut the walks with the result being a 2.44 K/BB ratio, right on his 2.47 career mark despite the significant decline in punchouts. Given all that data, I wouldn’t be shocked in the least if his K/9 rate went back up to his career level of 8.20 as I just can’t pinpoint why the mark fell off so dramatically last year.
A few things that should normalize as well and lead to improvement.
His 22.0 percent line drive rate was a career worst (career 19.1 percent).
His .312 BABIP was a three year high and the second highest mark of the last six years.
His HR/F ratio was 13.9 percent, a career worst and well above his 10.1 percent career mark. The result was a HR/9 mark of 1.10, a five year high and well above that 0.85 career mark.
He had a 6.31 ERA and 1.59 WHIP at Fenway last season. For his career those marks are 3.89 and 1.36.
Lester is no longer someone you can look at with a shot to be a top-15 starting pitcher. That said, his current ADP numbers in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship barely have him listed as an SP3. Given the cost, I think Lester is going to be well worth investing in this season
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By Ray Flowers
Tags: Cliff Lee, Jon Lester
By Sig on Feb 8, 2013
Lester’s “abilities” seemed to change a bit after he left the more spacious parks of the ALWest. You think there is any truth in that?
By Ray Flowers on Feb 8, 2013
Sig – Not sure what you mean. Lester has never been on a team in the AL West. He’s always been on the Red Sox.
By Gumby on Feb 8, 2013
Plus the fact that his old pitching coach returns as his manager, I’m sure he’ll have a bounce back season for sure.
By Polo on Feb 8, 2013
There isnt any reason to expect Lester not to bounce back. He was very good on the road. the only thing that kinda concerns me is the drop off in Ks
By Dave on Feb 8, 2013
Ray,
I really enjoy all the player profiles, however the pitching ones are pure gold.
I am one that prefers to wait on pitching, but sometimes find myself in the 4th or 5th round eye balling a SP. I’ve also taken the exact opposite approach in years waiting until at least round 10, which has had varying degrees of success.
Obviously it always depends on how a particular draft goes, but ideally (in my mind) getting one SP in the first 10 rounds, hopefully around rounds 6-8 seems to be a decent starting point.
With guys like Lester and Lincecum (both guys you’ve built my confidence up on) do you think it’s wise to nab one more “solid” SP in the single digit rounds and then try to target these two as the double digit rounds start? Figure if 8 or 9 of your first 10 picks are hitters, going pitcher/pitcher with Timmy and Lester at the start of double digits won’t tank your hitting stats, and if they hit will provide pretty good value.
Kind of a long winded way of asking, if you go after two guys such as Timmy (south park voice) and Lester, would you have tried to grab one other arm prior to these two pitchers?
Looking forward to the drive today.
Dave
By Ray Flowers on Feb 8, 2013
Dave – I LOVE South Park. One of the best shows on TV.
It would take guts to reach on both Lester and Lincecum. However, if they were to fall to you, I’d feel very good about that IF you had that one other guy in front of them. As my DRAFT GUIDE points out –
http://baseballguys.com/category/fantasy-draft-guide – neither of these two guys are top-20 in my book. Given the uncertainty of ’12 for both, it would be a risk to add them as your 1-2 punch this year, even if I do think both rebound.
By Swfcdan on Feb 8, 2013
His line drive rate exploded last year, up to 22% from 17%, that is the main reason he bombed so bad.
He just wasnt fooling guys with his heater, and he lost confidence and hardly threw his hook.
By Dave on Feb 8, 2013
Perfect! Thanks for the reply Ray, really appreciate your willingness to lend a hand. I have the draft guide at home, so I could’t see where they were ranked, but that makes sense. Guess I probably should save a copy on my work computer as well. (corporate don’t read that last sentence)
By Jordan on Feb 8, 2013
Hey Ray, love the profiles. Helping me out a ton. Would you trade C.J.Wilson to get Lester in a dynasty league? H2H points, not roto.
By Ray Flowers on Feb 8, 2013
Jordan – Virtual toss up. I’d go Wilson by a smidge.
By Dave on Feb 8, 2013
Ray, general starting pitcher staff question.
On the Drive today, Kyle brought up a hypothetical staff of, Matt Moore, TIMMY, Fiers and 2 others I can’t remember off the top of my head, but basically talking about putting a staff together from rounds 7-18 etc.
You then mentioned you’d obviously want to draft extra depth in the reserve rounds (Jaime Garcia, etc)
Now my question and personal problem from time to time is “over management”. I don’t play h2h, only roto, and a decent split of daily and weekly leagues, so obviously you can’t over manage a weekly league quite as easily, but in regards to the reserve arms you draft for depth: Are you drafting these guys to ride pine for the most part and are just there in case one of your first 5 or 6 flop or get injured, or are you starting these reserve arms over your first 5 or 6 you drafted depending on match up etc?
As you’ve mentioned, there’s a reason these guys are reserve arms and it’s hard to guess what’s going to happen in a specific game. It would seem, start a reserve arm too often and he gets shelled, your ratios are taking a hit and you’re using up innings toward your limit.
Appreciate the clarification on this subject. It’s a long season and I’m tired of second guessing the best way to handle a pitching staff that I build later in the draft throughout the season.
By Joe M on Feb 11, 2013
TIMMY