Jon Lester's HOF Case
Jon Lester's case for Cooperstown will only look better with time.
The off-season has been very dead and frankly, I am out of things to talk about when it comes to the Red Sox. A few weeks ago, Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton, and Joe Mauer were elected into the Hall of Fame. With recent reports of Jon Lester planning on visiting the Spring Training facilities of the teams he played for, I started to think about Lester’s Hall of Fame chances. Lester will have to wait 3 more years to find his name on a ballot but how will he be viewed when he does become eligible?
Lester pitched over the course of 16 seasons and was the definition of a workhorse. The former Red Sox left-hander started 450 games in his career and went 200-117 with 5 different organizations. Lester’s career ERA was 3.66 in 2,740 innings. Lester was one of the most durable pitchers of his time as he had 8 seasons in which he threw at least 200 innings. His career WAR is 43.5.
One of the biggest arguments against Lester and the Hall of Fame will be that he never won a CY award. Typically, Hall of Fame starting pitchers have at least 1 CY trophy with their name on it. Lester’s best finish in the CY voting was back in 2016 when he was the runner up. The one argument that will work in favor of Lester is there are pitchers who are in Cooperstown that do not have a CY. The best comparison may be Jack Morris.
If you compare Lester to Jack Morris, there are some similarities in the numbers. But one thing you will discover quickly is that even though Lester was considered a workhorse in his time, he does not come close to the type of workhorse that Morris was when he toed the rubber.
Morris is known for being a big game pitcher, especially with his game 7 performance of the 1991 World Series. In his postseason career, Morris is 7-4 with a 3.80 ERA in 13 appearances with 3 World Series titles. Lester was 9-7 with a 2.52 ERA in 26 postseason appearances with 3 World Series titles. Lester’s career WAR, which measures his overall value, was 43.5. Jack Morris’ career WAR was 43.5. Although Morris has a higher volume of statistics over the course of his career, the overall value that both players produced is identical. The identical value produced the same amount of World Series titles.
When Lester is compared to today’s pitchers or pitchers in the future, I think we could look at him similarly to the way we look at Morris. Once future Hall of Famers like Scherzer, Verlander, Greinke, and Kershaw are elected in, there will be a significant gap in the volume of statistics that pitchers are producing. The only pitcher that I think is on a definite Hall of Fame track is Gerrit Cole, who is only 32 years-old and is coming off of a CY season. Now, starters are not expected to go deep into games and they aren’t expected to throw 200+ innings in a season. In 5-10 years, it would not shock me to question how pitchers used to top 200 innings in a season, similar to the way we look at how Morris threw 293 innings back in ‘83.
If we compare Lester to some of the younger pitchers in today’s game, they have a long way to go to be compared to Lester not only in terms of WAR but almost all pitching categories.
The only pitcher that has a legitimate Hall of Fame argument right now that is on the list is deGrom with his 2 CY awards. Even deGrom’s case will be interesting, especially if he doesn’t have a resurgence when he returns from TJ surgery. Chris Sale will have a case but he has had a terrible time over the last 5 seasons with staying on the mound. He too will likely need a late career resurgence. And, Sale does not have a CY award. The rest of the players on the list above will add to their numbers but many will have a hard time beating Lester’s 43.5 WAR. Even if they do top Lester’s WAR, none of the current pitchers’ numbers will likely come close to Lester’s career numbers.
I think Jon Lester could be a player that we don’t really appreciate the numbers until we look back at them a decade later and compare them to the numbers of today’s pitchers. Jack Morris never won a CY but he was consistently good for a long time. His overall numbers look really impressive, especially when they are compared to today’s pitchers. Jon Lester never won a CY award. Lester was really good for a long time and his overall numbers look really impressive, especially when they are compared to today’s pitchers.
I would imagine most fans, especially non-Red Sox fans, would say Lester is a no for the Hall of Fame. I think if fans dig a little deeper into the numbers, his résumé is way more impressive than most would initially think. And I think his résumé will only age well over time.