No, really, despite Lester having under 45 career WAR.
Or, to look at individual seasons, Lester not having a single 7-WAR season, and only barely hitting the 6-WAR mark twice. Or being under the line on all four Hall of Fame guidelines at the bottom of his page.
But, it gets worse.
Rogers says he's possibly the best playoff pitcher ever.*
This, of course, first ignores that pre-1969, we HAD no playoffs.
Second, while B-Ref doesn't do sabermetrics for postseason pitching (short sample size?) it may be true that he's better there by WHIP and K/BB and K/BB (tho lower in K/9 than the regular season), there's reasons for that. Shorter pitch counts in postseasons. Lefties targeting lefty-heavy lineups. Fangraphs does have some postseason sabermetrics, and with their weird ERA-minus instead of ERA+, Lester appears better on it and ditto on its also flipped FIP-minus. (Although I appreciate the info, the psychological weirdness of going minus rather than plus is another reason to not like Fangraphs.)
But, let's stay in the last 30 years, when we expanded playoffs to a second round, then, of course the wild card play-in.
You taking Jon Lester over Curt Schilling? Absolutely not. Or Pedro Martinez? Or Greg Maddux? Randy Johnson? Or Bob Gibson or Sandy Koufax of pre-playoffs days?
I ain't.
* Nor taking him over Mariano Rivera in the relief side of baseball in today's postseason. (Rogers technically said starting pitcher, whether on the assumption that starters automatically have more value than relievers, or else because he knew there was no way to bullshit Lester over Rivera. No matter.)
I don't know whether this is Chicago Cubs Flubs homerism from Jesse, or just an extension of ESPN "Big Hall" bullshit or a bit of both or what, but?
It's Not.Even.Wrong.
7 comments:
No kidding: I couldn't believe what I was reading yesterday from Jon Paul Morosi (Moronsi?) as part of the MLB roundtable article. There's a long line ahead of Lester, populated by Pettitte, Saberhagen, Cone, and (if you prefer not to ignore history), Babe Adams, Carl Mays, and Tommy Bridges. Don't understand the Lester man-crush at all.
Phil, spot on!
And, speaking of Babes and history ....
Babe Ruth, who once had the record for consecutive scoreless innings pitched in the World Series, or Whitey Ford, who broke it!
Allegedly, Babe Adams was one of the inspirations for Ladies' Day at the ballpark way back when, as he was such a, well, babe. And Thomas Jefferson Davis Bridges gets the Pete Alexander/Ronald Reagan award for quirkiest presidential-baseball connection. Modern corollary: Theodore Roosevelt Lilly. Ain't baseball grand?!
Grand it is!
Do you remember years and years ago, when Jim Caple ran that weekly baseball trivia column at ESPN ... the one where he'd give some decades old box score at the end and ask readers to guess what was special about it?
That's too far back for me to recall: but I always liked Caple's work. Can anyone even read box scores or keep score by hand anymore?! Get off my lawn. . . .
I don't have a strong opinion on Lester's HOF worthiness, but I do have a couple of questions about WAR and the 2016 Cy Young vote.
First the basics--Max Sherzer received 25 out the 26 first place votes
and had 6.2 WAR compared to Lester's 5.6
The basic stats Sherzer 20-7, 2.96 era 284 ks 31 hrs
Lester 19-5, 2.44 era 197 ks 21 hrs
Sherzer did pitch an additional 30 or so innings, but I don't see how he has an additional .6 WAr, and the only reason I can see that he got 25 out of 26 first place CYA votes in what seems to me to be closer to a toss-up is that Chicago had several other pitchers who had excellent years who may have siphoned off some of Lester's support..
This turns on its head the conventional wisdom of MVP voting that it should go to player on winning team. Should pitcher be overlooked because he is on a team that wins? So catch-22.
Another good comment, Dave.
First, while WAR is good, of course, it's not perfect, and more importantly, it's not quite as precise as it presents itself, usually being accurate to within about 1/2 a WAR point, as I expect you know.
Second, on the 2016 issue, Scherzer had other "black ink," including WHIP and K/BB ratio. He was ahead on ERA+, but Lester was ahead on FIP. Take that all into consideration and then the 10 percent innings difference as the cream on top probably does explain the diff.
Third, the "Mike Trout issue," if you will? Twenty years earlier, Lester might have won the Cy. But, more and more, the argument has prevailed that the MVP should be more about player value, period, rather than player value to a team, and I think the same argument has taken precedent with Cy Youngs, too.
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