Lose Remerswaal said:
If Lester is a borderline #1, that suggests (with 30 teams) that there are 25-35 starting pitchers you'd put as #1's ahead of him.
I'd like to see that list.
Jon Lester, among MLB qualified pitchers:
- 52nd in era (3.75)
- 12th in IP (213.1)
- 31st in Ks (177)
- 54th in whip (1.29)
- 38th in WAR (3.0 - according to espn.com)
That's a nice, solid profile. Is it top 25-30 in baseball? Based on last year's stats, here's a list of guys I'd rank higher than Lester:
- Kershaw (7.9 WAR, 1.83 era)
- Fernandez (6.3 WAR, 2.19 era)
- King Felix (5.2 WAR, 3.03 era)
- Harvey (5.2 WAR, 2.27 era)
- Sanchez (6.3 WAR, 2.57 era)
- Darvish (5.8 WAR, 2.83 era)
- Bumgarner (3.9 WAR, 2.77 era)
- Greinke (3.9 WAR, 2.63 era)
- Iwakuma (7.0 WAR, 2.66 era)
- Scherzer (6.7 WAR, 2.90 era)
- Lee (7.3 WAR, 2.87 era)
- Colon (5.1 WAR, 2.65 era)
- Wainwright (6.2 WAR, 2.94 era)
- Strasburg (3.1 WAR, 3.00 era)
- Ryu (3.3 WAR, 3.00 era)
- Miller (3.4 WAR, 3.06 era) - still blows me away that StL shelved him for the playoffs….
- Sale (6.9 WAR, 3.07 era)
- Shields (4.1 WAR, 3.15 era)
- Latos (3.8 WAR, 3.16 era)
- Zimmerman (3.7 WAR, 3.25 era)
- Price (2.8 WAR, 3.33 era)
- Verlander (4.6 WAR, 3.46 era)
- Chacin (5.9 WAR, 3.47 era)
- Hamels (4.6 WAR, 3.60 era)
That's 24 right there. There are lots of other guys that ended up with a higher WAR than Lester, if that metric matters to you.
Now, if you count his postseason performance, obviously there Lester was not just an ace, but an historically great ACE. Just unbelievable. And I'm not saying I'd rather have everyone on that list above over Lester, because I wouldn't. He's been terrific for the Red Sox over the course of his career. But there are plenty of starters that have put together a statistical resume better than Lester's. And that's not even considering his stinker of a 2012 season.