Chicago Cubs: How starting rotation stacks up against NL Central
By Ryan Sikes
What should the Cubs expect from Jon Lester in 2020?
Jon Lester accelerated the Cubs’ competitive window when he agreed to sign with the team during the middle of the night in December 2014. Lester was coming off two World Series titles with the Boston Red Sox and was considered to be the best free-agent starting pitcher on the market that year.
He lived up to the hype, posting 3.34, 2.44, 4.33, and 3.32 ERAs in his first four seasons. Through the first half of 2019, Lester posted a 3.72 ERA, but the regression that was expected finally reared its ugly face in the second half of the year. Just as quickly as Darvish’s season turned around, Lester’s went south.
The 35-year-old posted a 5.35 ERA in the second half, including a 7.12 ERA in August. Now in the final year of his six-year deal, Lester is not expected to be the number one starter of the rotation, but he doesn’t necessarily have to be. Fangraphs projects Lester’s regression to continue, posting a 4.62 ERA and a career-worst 1.42 HR/9.
The Cubs will look to Kyle Hendricks to pick up some of the slack experienced by Lester’s expected regression. Hendricks recently turned 30 and signed a four-year contract extension early last year. His 2018 and 2019 seasons nearly paralleled each other with 3.44 and 3.46 ERAs, respectively.
Hendricks missed three starts last year with shoulder inflammation, but it didn’t appear to hinder his results. Fangraphs believes that he will drop off considerably in 2020, with a 3.98 ERA and, like Lester, post a career-worst 1.24 HR/9. Hendricks was on pace to post a career-worst HR/9 last year and would have if he had not been injured.
I can understand the projections for the upcoming season, for both Lester and Hendricks, but I think both will greatly benefit from the Cubs’ recent implementation of the Pitch Lab. Reliever Kyle Ryan already attributes most of his success to it:
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"“I can attribute everything to that,” reliever Kyle Ryan said. “The people that are working for us in the lab, all those guys, there is a lot of knowledge available in there. It takes a lot of knowledge to understand it all and to teach it properly, and they do. I feel like all of us should be using it. I still use it just to make sure everything is in the same spot.” – The Athletic"