FanGraphs Chat – 9/29/10





Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

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Mike
13 years ago

I like Dave Cameron and love this site, but he’s dead wrong about Lester’s value in relation to King Felix, CC, and Price.

Felix should be the clear winner of the CY, but it’s pretty darn clear to me that Lester is the clear runner up. In fact, I’d argue that Lester is probably closer to Felix than Price or Sabathia are to him.

WAR: Felix (6.4) Lester (5.9) Sabathia (4.8), Price (4.4)
XFIP: Felix (3.27) Lester (3.24) Sabathia (3.78) Price (4.01)

Lester also happens to have the lowest FIP of all four pitchers. He also pitches in a ball park that sucks for left handed pitchers and does face New York, Toronto, and Tampa Bay a greater percentage of the time and while this point is overblown; it almost certainly has some marginal impact on his line. One is not stupid for bringing up the fact that player X faces line ups that average .5 runs more than Player Y.

To be clear, I think Felix has had the better year and is the better pitcher- it’s difficult for Lester to compete with those IP at roughly the same FIP but Lester would be a fine pick for the AL Cy Young, any other year than this one. He’s done a lot more than CC or Price.