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Jon Lester to the Cubs 6/155
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 10, 2014 21:52:40 GMT -5
Wow this thread is a train wreck. Yikes.
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Post by voiceofreason on Jan 13, 2022 9:19:22 GMT -5
How much would you have given lester if he was a FA after the 2012 season where he pitched like crap? He had a career year in his contract year. And those are not B players. Maybe that's why the Redsox final offer too Lester was six years and $135MM because he pitch like crap in 2012 lol. Good bye too Blake Swihart and Henry Owens for Cole Hamels. Time for the Redsox too panic and save face. In retrospect this would have been a great trade LOL. I guess we can look at this and realize that tempering expectations for prospects is a good idea.
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Post by freddysthefuture2003 on Jan 13, 2022 10:20:55 GMT -5
Blessing in disguise fellas, no way Lester is worth 25M+/year (not now and definitely not in year 6). Enjoy the overpay Cubs. I do wish we could have just signed him in the off-season when we would have got a considerable discount but this was the right move. Old takes exposed
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 13, 2022 10:55:50 GMT -5
Maybe that's why the Redsox final offer too Lester was six years and $135MM because he pitch like crap in 2012 lol. Good bye too Blake Swihart and Henry Owens for Cole Hamels. Time for the Redsox too panic and save face. In retrospect this would have been a great trade LOL. I guess we can look at this and realize that tempering expectations for prospects is a good idea. There was also talk of Mookie Betts for Cole Hamels. That would've been very bad! (Hamels obviously maintained his value pretty well). Usually against bumping old threads, but this one is quite a trip. Don't want to slam anyone in particular for being wrong, because we're all wrong a lot. But a lot of this is quite funny, especially the undercurrent of "the Cubs aren't ready to be adding free agents like Lester before they're ready to compete."
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Post by voiceofreason on Jan 13, 2022 16:59:50 GMT -5
In retrospect this would have been a great trade LOL. I guess we can look at this and realize that tempering expectations for prospects is a good idea. There was also talk of Mookie Betts for Cole Hamels. That would've been very bad! (Hamels obviously maintained his value pretty well). Usually against bumping old threads, but this one is quite a trip. Don't want to slam anyone in particular for being wrong, because we're all wrong a lot. But a lot of this is quite funny, especially the undercurrent of "the Cubs aren't ready to be adding free agents like Lester before they're ready to compete." I agree on the old threads but this is a great one to read thru, I only made it part way thru this morning and I am looking forward to going thru it tonight. It is like bonus material with an offseason with little to nothing to discuss. I have yet to read any comments from me but I am sure there are some.
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Post by notstarboard on Jan 17, 2022 0:56:17 GMT -5
Blessing in disguise fellas, no way Lester is worth 25M+/year (not now and definitely not in year 6). Enjoy the overpay Cubs. I do wish we could have just signed him in the off-season when we would have got a considerable discount but this was the right move. Old takes exposed Tbf it kind of was an overpay. He made 171 starts for the Cubs, which is workmanlike over a 6 year period, but a 3.86 FIP in the NL Central while making $26 million per year on a 2014 deal is not good value. 13.2 bWAR for 6/155 wouldn't be a good value even in 2022 dollars.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jan 17, 2022 11:11:46 GMT -5
Tbf it kind of was an overpay. He made 171 starts for the Cubs, which is workmanlike over a 6 year period, but a 3.86 FIP in the NL Central while making $26 million per year on a 2014 deal is not good value. 13.2 bWAR for 6/155 wouldn't be a good value even in 2022 dollars. I doubt there are any Cubs fans who regret the Jon Lester signing. The Jason Heyward signing? That's a different story.
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Post by freddysthefuture2003 on Jan 17, 2022 12:03:47 GMT -5
Tbf it kind of was an overpay. He made 171 starts for the Cubs, which is workmanlike over a 6 year period, but a 3.86 FIP in the NL Central while making $26 million per year on a 2014 deal is not good value. 13.2 bWAR for 6/155 wouldn't be a good value even in 2022 dollars. I doubt there are any Cubs fans who regret the Jon Lester signing. The Jason Heyward signing? That's a different story. Changed the culture, won a ring, bought the city beers, change the 1 to a 2, and they'll still say the contract was a bargain
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Post by notstarboard on Jan 17, 2022 13:02:04 GMT -5
I doubt there are any Cubs fans who regret the Jon Lester signing. The Jason Heyward signing? That's a different story. Changed the culture, won a ring, bought the city beers, change the 1 to a 2, and they'll still say the contract was a bargain I can understand that point of view, but I'm not a "winning a ring means it was all worth it" type of person, especially given how much of a crap-shoot the playoffs are. There is definitely something to be said for guys with intangibles who can make a difference in the clubhouse, but if I were the GM I wouldn't be paying 6/155 for a slightly above average SP with some intangibles. Plus, if they didn't overpay for Lester, they could theoretically have allocated that money elsewhere to strengthen the team.
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hank
Rookie
Posts: 102
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Post by hank on Jan 17, 2022 13:11:44 GMT -5
Changed the culture, won a ring, bought the city beers, change the 1 to a 2, and they'll still say the contract was a bargain I think you're underselling the value of a Series victory for the Cubs. It had been 108 years. And Lester was co-series MVP. They don't win without him.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jan 17, 2022 13:43:13 GMT -5
Changed the culture, won a ring, bought the city beers, change the 1 to a 2, and they'll still say the contract was a bargain I can understand that point of view, but I'm not a "winning a ring means it was all worth it" type of person, especially given how much of a crap-shoot the playoffs are. There is definitely something to be said for guys with intangibles who can make a difference in the clubhouse, but if I were the GM I wouldn't be paying 6/155 for a slightly above average SP with some intangibles. Plus, if they didn't overpay for Lester, they could theoretically have allocated that money elsewhere to strengthen the team.
You act like Lester was mediocre in Chicago. He wasn't and when the team was at it's best Lester was the key guy. In 2016 when it really mattered there was no better place to allocate the money than Lester. Perhaps you're a younger Sox fan accustomed to seeing your team win championships? The Cubs hadn't won in 108 years. Hadn't even been to the Series in 71 years. Lester wasn't some guy who happened to be there. He was one of their best pitchers and contributed mightily to that win. It's not like he was a flop like Heyward or cost them 2 excellent seasons of Gleyber Torres like Aroldis Chapman did. The Cubs did very well to sign him. Only toward the very end was Lester a liability with the Cubs.
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Post by freddysthefuture2003 on Jan 17, 2022 13:57:41 GMT -5
Changed the culture, won a ring, bought the city beers, change the 1 to a 2, and they'll still say the contract was a bargain I can understand that point of view, but I'm not a "winning a ring means it was all worth it" type of person, especially given how much of a crap-shoot the playoffs are. There is definitely something to be said for guys with intangibles who can make a difference in the clubhouse, but if I were the GM I wouldn't be paying 6/155 for a slightly above average SP with some intangibles. Plus, if they didn't overpay for Lester, they could theoretically have allocated that money elsewhere to strengthen the team.
True, they could've given it to Hanley and Sandoval instead.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 17, 2022 14:30:06 GMT -5
I was doing a bit of a "memory lane" stroll through some old notes recently, and I found some notes from a chat in 2014 with a friend who works for a large agency that represents players. We'd discussed the whole "Red Sox lowballed Lester" theory and he was sort of dubious of the idea that the first offer the club made submarined the negotiations - and keep in mind, he works on the player side. He said that first offers are never what the team is actually willing to pay, and he couldn't see a guy getting so upset about being disrespected in a first offer that it'd ruin the whole situation. He said that sometimes, his group would get a first offer from a club and they'd say "y'know, I'm not sure there's a fit here" and walk away, but he seemed to mean it in a way that they'd have been leaning towards testing free agency anyway and just wanted to see if the club was going to blow them away with the first offer. He said while 4/70 was a little low, it wasn't completely outrageous for a first offer based on his experience. Anyway, YMMV.
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 17, 2022 14:30:19 GMT -5
It's not like Lester was a mediocre pitcher and they won in spite of him. He was very good - excellent on the front end - and the team won a championship because of that. Win efficiency doesn't measure the importance of each marginal win, and the marginal wins that Lester provided were hugely important. If you sign a guy to a $155 million deal and he's objectively worth $125 million, plus he wins an NLCS MVP and helps you win a World Series it's hard to say that you didn't get value.
He also had a 2.30 ERA in 63 2/3 playoff innings for the Cubs, which you kinda gotta factor in. Basically a 1/3 of an excellent season. Worth something in the 2.0-3.0 WAR range even without context.
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Post by notstarboard on Jan 18, 2022 4:59:54 GMT -5
I can understand that point of view, but I'm not a "winning a ring means it was all worth it" type of person, especially given how much of a crap-shoot the playoffs are. There is definitely something to be said for guys with intangibles who can make a difference in the clubhouse, but if I were the GM I wouldn't be paying 6/155 for a slightly above average SP with some intangibles. Plus, if they didn't overpay for Lester, they could theoretically have allocated that money elsewhere to strengthen the team.
You act like Lester was mediocre in Chicago. He wasn't and when the team was at it's best Lester was the key guy. In 2016 when it really mattered there was no better place to allocate the money than Lester. Perhaps you're a younger Sox fan accustomed to seeing your team win championships? The Cubs hadn't won in 108 years. Hadn't even been to the Series in 71 years. Lester wasn't some guy who happened to be there. He was one of their best pitchers and contributed mightily to that win. It's not like he was a flop like Heyward or cost them 2 excellent seasons of Gleyber Torres like Aroldis Chapman did. The Cubs did very well to sign him. Only toward the very end was Lester a liability with the Cubs. 13.2 bWAR and 16.8 fWAR in 6 seasons. A league average player is said to provide ~2 WAR over a full season. Lester averaged 2.2 bWAR and 2.8 fWAR. He had a solid 2015, great 2016, and then four seasons of meh. I stand by "slightly above average" over the contract.
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Post by notstarboard on Jan 18, 2022 5:02:11 GMT -5
I can understand that point of view, but I'm not a "winning a ring means it was all worth it" type of person, especially given how much of a crap-shoot the playoffs are. There is definitely something to be said for guys with intangibles who can make a difference in the clubhouse, but if I were the GM I wouldn't be paying 6/155 for a slightly above average SP with some intangibles. Plus, if they didn't overpay for Lester, they could theoretically have allocated that money elsewhere to strengthen the team.
True, they could've given it to Hanley and Sandoval instead. There are also worse investments than Jon Lester's contract lol
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Post by notstarboard on Jan 18, 2022 5:32:31 GMT -5
I think you're underselling the value of a Series victory for the Cubs. It had been 108 years. And Lester was co-series MVP. They don't win without him.
I don't think you can back up the assertion that they don't win without Lester. It's not a binary between Lester and no Lester; it's Lester vs. what they might have acquired had they not paid Lester. Washington signed Scherzer at only $4 million AAV higher that same 2014-15 offseason, for example, and while that was an uncharacteristically valuable signing, it still shows the value out there on the FA block that year. Lester was money in the DS and CS and heavily contributed to those wins (4.8 and 11.1% cWPA are huge), but the Cubs also won both of those series with a game to spare, so they may well still have won without Lester, especially with another $26 million of investments in his stead. He was good, but not great, in the WS. 3.68 ERA in 3 appearances, which was worth 3.5% cWPA. That's something, but at the end of the day I'm not ignoring his mediocrity outside of 2015-16 for that and calling it a good contract. Plus, with better investments than Lester, maybe they win another year too. The Cubs averaged a 91-win pace from 2017-2020 and made the playoffs three of those years.
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Post by notstarboard on Jan 18, 2022 5:40:14 GMT -5
It's not like Lester was a mediocre pitcher and they won in spite of him. He was very good - excellent on the front end - and the team won a championship because of that. Win efficiency doesn't measure the importance of each marginal win, and the marginal wins that Lester provided were hugely important. If you sign a guy to a $155 million deal and he's objectively worth $125 million, plus he wins an NLCS MVP and helps you win a World Series it's hard to say that you didn't get value. He also had a 2.30 ERA in 63 2/3 playoff innings for the Cubs, which you kinda gotta factor in. Basically a 1/3 of an excellent season. Worth something in the 2.0-3.0 WAR range even without context. The overall playoff argument is valid, and the best counterargument I've seen on this post, but his contract is still meh if you add another 2-3 WAR to the pile. I'm still not sure the performance differential with $26 million spent elsewhere is enough to overlook the price tag over the full deal for Lester, unless you happen to be more "flags fly forever" than I am.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 18, 2022 9:24:54 GMT -5
You act like Lester was mediocre in Chicago. He wasn't and when the team was at it's best Lester was the key guy. In 2016 when it really mattered there was no better place to allocate the money than Lester. Perhaps you're a younger Sox fan accustomed to seeing your team win championships? The Cubs hadn't won in 108 years. Hadn't even been to the Series in 71 years. Lester wasn't some guy who happened to be there. He was one of their best pitchers and contributed mightily to that win. It's not like he was a flop like Heyward or cost them 2 excellent seasons of Gleyber Torres like Aroldis Chapman did. The Cubs did very well to sign him. Only toward the very end was Lester a liability with the Cubs. 13.2 bWAR and 16.8 fWAR in 6 seasons. A league average player is said to provide ~2 WAR over a full season. Lester averaged 2.2 bWAR and 2.8 fWAR. He had a solid 2015, great 2016, and then four seasons of meh. I stand by "slightly above average" over the contract. Not league average player, but average regular. Maybe that's what you meant but to me, that's a bit more than a semantic argument - average among the guys who get regular playing time rather than average among every player in the league. 2.8 fWAR would've put him among the top 50 pitchers in baseball last year. Anyway, more importantly, I really disagree with the characterization of his time in Chicago as "He had a solid 2015, great 2016, and then four seasons of meh." He finished in the top 10 of the Cy Young voting in 2018 with a 125 ERA+. He was league average in 2017 and 2019 and only had one poor year in 2020 - a wonky-ass season in which players were affected differently by the various on- and off-field circumstances the league was playing through. That said, if you told the Cubs that in years 1-5 they were going to get one elite year, two above-average years, and two average years, maybe they wouldn't have been thrilled, but they wouldn't have been cursing their luck either. He was a top-20 starter in the game for those five years, then had a poor COVID 2020.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jan 18, 2022 9:36:09 GMT -5
You act like Lester was mediocre in Chicago. He wasn't and when the team was at it's best Lester was the key guy. In 2016 when it really mattered there was no better place to allocate the money than Lester. Perhaps you're a younger Sox fan accustomed to seeing your team win championships? The Cubs hadn't won in 108 years. Hadn't even been to the Series in 71 years. Lester wasn't some guy who happened to be there. He was one of their best pitchers and contributed mightily to that win. It's not like he was a flop like Heyward or cost them 2 excellent seasons of Gleyber Torres like Aroldis Chapman did. The Cubs did very well to sign him. Only toward the very end was Lester a liability with the Cubs. 13.2 bWAR and 16.8 fWAR in 6 seasons. A league average player is said to provide ~2 WAR over a full season. Lester averaged 2.2 bWAR and 2.8 fWAR. He had a solid 2015, great 2016, and then four seasons of meh. I stand by "slightly above average" over the contract. I think the Cubs will take the actual championship they won over any theoretical "might have won another year" arguments. And I doubt Jon Lester and his contract cost them shots at winning again. Chris already laid out the argument that I had made earlier that his final season, a useless season in 2020, dragging down his averages. Lester was great when the Cubs absolutely needed him to be great and he was well above average for the duration of that contract. When you think about how many contracts are signed by free agents in their 30s and how many of them are flops, I'd say the Cubs did damn well in the signing. You can't expect a guy who is a free agent in his 30s to have seasons that guys who are usually in their primes in their 20s have. So it comes down to: do you flat out not sign free agents altogether or deal with the fact that you're going to pay the free agent premium and that toward the end of the contract, even a good one, you're likely going to get slippage, especially with pitchers who are extremely fragile? When you factor in that the Cubs got a durable pitcher who was healthy throughout his contract, effective for most of it, and great when it truly mattered for the franchise, I'd say the Cubs did damn well in this signing and would do this signing 10 times out of 10 if given the same exact situation. I think just throwing on a WAR number lacks some of the nuance of the Cubs franchise situation and the fact that Lester was effective for the duration of that contract and that compared to a lot of free agent signings which by its nature are doomed to failure, actually worked out very well.
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hank
Rookie
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Post by hank on Jan 18, 2022 10:38:33 GMT -5
13.2 bWAR and 16.8 fWAR in 6 seasons. A league average player is said to provide ~2 WAR over a full season. Lester averaged 2.2 bWAR and 2.8 fWAR. He had a solid 2015, great 2016, and then four seasons of meh. I stand by "slightly above average" over the contract. I think the Cubs will take the actual championship they won over any theoretical "might have won another year" arguments. And I doubt Jon Lester and his contract cost them shots at winning again. Chris already laid out the argument that I had made earlier that his final season, a useless season in 2020, dragging down his averages. Lester was great when the Cubs absolutely needed him to be great and he was well above average for the duration of that contract. When you think about how many contracts are signed by free agents in their 30s and how many of them are flops, I'd say the Cubs did damn well in the signing. You can't expect a guy who is a free agent in his 30s to have seasons that guys who are usually in their primes in their 20s have. So it comes down to: do you flat out not sign free agents altogether or deal with the fact that you're going to pay the free agent premium and that toward the end of the contract, even a good one, you're likely going to get slippage, especially with pitchers who are extremely fragile? When you factor in that the Cubs got a durable pitcher who was healthy throughout his contract, effective for most of it, and great when it truly mattered for the franchise, I'd say the Cubs did damn well in this signing and would do this signing 10 times out of 10 if given the same exact situation. I think just throwing on a WAR number lacks some of the nuance of the Cubs franchise situation and the fact that Lester was effective for the duration of that contract and that compared to a lot of free agent signings which by its nature are doomed to failure, actually worked out very well. ^ this
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mobaz
Veteran
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Post by mobaz on Jan 18, 2022 13:31:02 GMT -5
I think the Cubs will take the actual championship they won over any theoretical "might have won another year" arguments. And I doubt Jon Lester and his contract cost them shots at winning again. Chris already laid out the argument that I had made earlier that his final season, a useless season in 2020, dragging down his averages. Lester was great when the Cubs absolutely needed him to be great and he was well above average for the duration of that contract. When you think about how many contracts are signed by free agents in their 30s and how many of them are flops, I'd say the Cubs did damn well in the signing. You can't expect a guy who is a free agent in his 30s to have seasons that guys who are usually in their primes in their 20s have. So it comes down to: do you flat out not sign free agents altogether or deal with the fact that you're going to pay the free agent premium and that toward the end of the contract, even a good one, you're likely going to get slippage, especially with pitchers who are extremely fragile? When you factor in that the Cubs got a durable pitcher who was healthy throughout his contract, effective for most of it, and great when it truly mattered for the franchise, I'd say the Cubs did damn well in this signing and would do this signing 10 times out of 10 if given the same exact situation. I think just throwing on a WAR number lacks some of the nuance of the Cubs franchise situation and the fact that Lester was effective for the duration of that contract and that compared to a lot of free agent signings which by its nature are doomed to failure, actually worked out very well. ^ this Do people say "My house purchase was a failure because my daughter finally moved out and barely anyone uses the guest room now!"? Compared to most free agent deals, "3 great years, might have hit 'value' and directly resulted in a championship" is a huge win.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 18, 2022 13:35:03 GMT -5
Well, to play devil's advocate for a bit, I think the point is Lester pitched to like a 45-50th percentile on the contract, one of the richest ever signed by a pitcher at the time, whereas say Scherzer was a 90th percentile outcome.
You definitely can't say they made out like bandits or anything. My point is that the value they got was fine considering they knew they would be saving money on all the young guys they had coming up in the lineup. Like Price wasn't "worth" his contract either but it worked out ok.
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Post by dcb26 on Jan 18, 2022 13:55:51 GMT -5
I can think of no better or more nostalgic tribute to the end of Jon Lester's career than a final resurgence of the "was Jon Lester an ace?" argument
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jan 18, 2022 14:02:04 GMT -5
I can think of no better or more nostalgic tribute to the end of Jon Lester's career than a final resurgence of the "was Jon Lester an ace?" argument He was in the 2013 World Series....so that's good enough for me
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