Boston Red Sox: Most overrated players in franchise history
By Drew Athans
Jon Lester
I know this one is going to make a lot of Red Sox fans upset right off the bat and as I stated before, far too many people equate anyone saying someone is overrated with it meaning they were bad. That’s not the case at all and in no way, shape, or form do I think Jon Lester was bad. He was a very good pitcher for the Red Sox for eight seasons… but I do think he’s overrated.
In those eight and a half seasons in Boston, Lester compiled a record of 110 wins and 63 losses with an ERA of 3.75 and 1386 strikeouts. Those are very good numbers and on the face of them, would seem to suggest a top pitcher. Lester also had really good numbers in October, going 6-4 with a 2.46 ERA and 68 strikeouts over the 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2013 postseasons combined.
When you take a deeper look at the numbers, though, he was a bit overrated. While he won 19 games in 2009, his per season average win-loss record was just under 13 wins and 7.4 losses, not bad at all but not befitting the “ace” status so many Red Sox fans gave him during his Boston tenure.
Other than 2008, where he spent the first half of the season on the team before being traded, he never had an ERA below 3.00 and in three seasons had an ERA over 4.50. Also, while he was a durable starter, pitching (just barely) over 200 innings in five seasons, he averaged right around 6 IP per start for his career.
He wasn’t exactly known for going deep in games and those who remember watching Lester regularly will remember a guy who routinely labored to get through five or six innings. A closer look at his postseason stats also shows that while he was great in the 2007 World Series and the entire 2013 postseason run, he also posted ERAs over 4.50 in three series (2007 and 2008 ALCS, 2009 ALDS).
No one denies that Jon Lester was a very good, dependable pitcher who was instrumental in helping the Red Sox win two World Series, but I always bristled when fans called him an “ace” and a “No. 1” starter and I know I wasn’t alone in disagreeing. At best, Lester was probably a really good No. 2 or No. 3 starter. He could handle pitching in Boston and the Red Sox should never have traded him, but he was also massively overrated.