Jon Lester Should Have Madison Bumgarner’s Reputation
Last night, Jon Lester took the mound for the Cubs, and for most of the game, the conversation was about he can’t do: hold runners on. The Dodgers danced and pranced off first base, taking leads they wouldn’t take against any pitcher, and daring him to throw over to first base. But you know what the Dodgers didn’t do against Jon Lester? Score runs.
Okay, fine, they got one, but for most of the night, Lester just shut the Dodgers offense down. Because that’s just what he does in October.
You know about Madison Bumgarner’s postseason dominance by now; that’s a well-told story at this point. So, just for fun, here’s a table of some numbers that might surprise you.
| Postseason | IP | BB% | K% | HR/9 | BABIP | LOB% | ERA- | FIP- | xFIP- |
| Lester | 119 | 6% | 21% | 0.9 | 0.248 | 83% | 60 | 86 | 94 |
| Bumgarner | 102 | 5% | 22% | 0.7 | 0.236 | 84% | 57 | 85 | 93 |
Lester has been basically identical to Bumgarner in the postseason, once you account for the league and run environment differences of their postseason opportunities. Even their underlying numbers are almost identical across the board. Lester, though, has now been this dominant in 17 extra playoff innings, so you could argue that his October resume is actually even more impressive.
For all the talk about the Giants ace as the dominant postseason hurler of his time, Lester is in that conversation ,too. And after another great outing last night, he’s one of the big reasons the Cubs are now one win away from the World Series.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
As an A’s fan, there will always be a special burning hatred in my heart for Lester and Derek Norris.
Hate your front office for that one. They didn’t do their homework.
I see a pitcher that has walked more guys, struck out less, given up more homers and hits, and allowed more baserunners to score. Also Lester has faced both NL/AL teams in the postseason since he’s pitched in the world sdries. What’s the story here?
I cannot wait to see Lindor & the gang run hog wild on Lesster.
he has 14 more strikeouts than bumgarner
His point was that 21% is less than 22%, I.e. He strikes out less.
I’m sure you know this and this may be an intended clicky article/headline but factor in opponent splits vs LHP and “Jon Lester Should Have Madison Bumgarner’s Reputation” is pretty LOL.
Lester is an ace no doubt and has repeatedly shown up in the playoffs (especially this year) but c’mon man
“Is an ace no doubt”… a compliment yet still a massive understatement for a top 5 Era guy in the divisional era. Dont act like it’s ridiculous to compare the two.
We are not comparing the two. We are comparing their postseason resumes. I feel like that is an important distinction.
119 innings of Cy Young level performance against only playoff teams, primarily in the American League, around multiple supporting casts and across multiple seasons?
Yeah, must be the platoon splits.
I don’t know where to begin. I’ll start with “Lester is an ace no doubt” and “has repeatedly shown up in the playoffs”
Guess what? Bumgarner didn’t get to pitch against non playoff teams either.
On occasion Bumgarner has to pitch against the AL in the postseason too. He has a 0.25 ERA.
119 innings of Cy Young level performance? I’m too lazy to look it up, but if you feel like it lemme know the last cy young award winner with an 86 FIP- and a 94 FIP-. I’m going to guess it’s been quite a while.
JohnBum has a total of 31 GS in the post. Let’s see what the top game scores are.
1 – Bum
2 – Bum
3 – Bum
4 – Bum
5 – Bum
6 – Tie!!
Bumgarners teams are 13-3 in the playoffs. Lesters are 10-9.
And I didn’t even mention platoon splits!
1) R.A. Dickey
2) Game Score doesn’t adjust for league averages which is why Dave used ERA- and FIP-
3) Lester’s teams lost more because he’s made the playoffs more times and because MadBum had a truly historic 2014 post season.
1) Well Dickey had an 84 FIP- and 84 xFIP-, which is close but does actually miss both requirements by 2% and 12%. If this were a math test I would give you an F.
For arguments sake I’ll give it to you. But Dickey is a knuckleballer and do you see how each of those metrics are poor for contrasting a knuckleballer vs either of these pitchers? (Serious not sarcastic question) If not I can try to explain why I think that.
2) A. What does that have to do with anything B. That is also an assumption, unless you are Dave on another account C. Of course it doesn’t adjust for league averages It’s a single game
3) W-L to begin with is a stat not accounting for A LOT of luck. So I’m not using that in my argument as to which pitcher is better so much as I’m using it to back up why Bumgarner has a deservedly much bigger rep. Bottom line to the viewers is Bum has won more and lost less
Made an account just to say this.
The interesting thing about Jon Lester is that he doesn’t really put up magnificent performances. Instead, he just puts up really good performances, like say 7 IP, 1 ER, 6 SO, 2 BB, 5 hits. That’s usually about the best you can get from Lester.
However, what makes Lester a magnificent pitcher is that you can almost always expect to get that from Lester. He’s consistently really good. He doesn’t put up incredible performances, but he doesn’t really put up shit performances either. That’s why he was quietly one of the best pitchers in the league this year, and he’s my pick for the Cy.
Someone needs to do like a standard deviation analysis of Lester. I’d be really interested in reading something like that.
I agree with a lot of this. That would be an interesting read.
I would give the Cy Young to Jose Fernandez personally (although partly to do with non on the field events).
If not Jose then I would argue for Scherzer, IP matter a lot to me. FWIW I would give Lester a 4th place vote
It’s going to be tough for the public to get past inning 8 of the 2014 al wild card game, the first of the royals’ many postseason comebacks.
Bumgarner’s success has been a lot flashier. He has the better narrative. That’s basically it.
The bigger thing to me, is the 3 CG SHO, and save. It’s not just that Bumgarner’s good. It’s that sometimes he’s almost literally all the team needs.
I dunno if it should be the same but his successes do deserve more mention in broadcasts. One plus bumgarner has is that the year his era was 6+ the giants still got rings
I think that a big reason for this difference in reputations is that general expectations for bumgarner’s teams in the playoffs have been pretty low, while general expectations for lester’s teams in the playoffs have typically been quite high. This has meant that when bumgarner has pitched well and his team has won, people have attributed this to his performance, whereas when he hasn’t pitched so well, people haven’t really noticed. For lester it’s been the reverse, since his teams are more expected to win in the playoffs, he doesn’t get so much credit when he does well and they win, whereas when he doesn’t pitch so well and the lose, people do notice and he gets some on the blame.
For example the general assumption about the 2014 giants has been that they simply weren’t a very good team, so when people try to explain how they nevertheless won the world series, they search around for some special explanation and identify bumgarner, assigning him practically superhuman powers, but the 2013 red sox are commonly assumed to be a generally a great team, so people don’t typically make such a big deal of lester’s performance for them. The people who are most committed to the legend of postseason bumgarner aren’t giants’ fans, they’re people who think the giants aren’t any good and therefore need some special explanation for their postseason success.
Generally speaking, if you don’t want to contribute to the legend of madison bumgarner, it probably isn’t a good idea to trash the giants in general, because this is clearly the driving force behind the legend of bumgarner.
I may be missing something, but Lester gave up 30% more HR/9 than Madison, 0.9 vs. 0.7, which is a significant difference, all things being equal, which they mostly seem, but left unsaid was that Bumgarner was better in each stat listed as well.
Heroics aside, people forget that Bumgarner has had some downs in the playoffs, including getting a start skipped in 2012 , because he was lost mechanically. And he was the only starter to not win his start against the Nats. Those hiccups brought his overall numbers to Lester. But crushing teams in the World Series really catches people attention, as well as shutting out the other team in must win wild card games.
But, still, it was his great run in 2014 that made his reputation, he didn’t have as much national notice, or even Giants fans notice, before that. (I had been intending to buy his autographed ball for a couple of years, and that ball sat there for years, until his great 2014 run, after which it was gone, then the new ball was priced much higher). When Lester has such a run, then maybe he will have the same reputation.
50% more HR corresponds to
12 homeruns in 119 innings versus 8 homeruns in 102 innings.
Adjusted for the same inning, the difference is more like 3 homeruns.
And of course, AT&T park is the stingiest in terms of homeruns.
So adjusting for all that, the real difference is about… 1.5 homeruns?
Barely more than noise, wouldn’t you say?
Yes, AT&T Park suppresses HRs by 50%. Good grief.
In this years run (probably Lesters best postseason) Are we going to mention at all that he is playing with the Cubs defense (maybe the best ever?) and has exclusively faced the Giants (92 wRC v LHP, 21/30 teams) and the dodgers (72!!!!!! wRC v LHP 30/30 teams!)
Samuel, you’ve forgotten that in the context of discussing Cubs’ pitchers in Fangraphs, their statistics are not significantly affected by the Cubs’ defense.
And in the context of discussing Cubs’ fielding in Fangraphs’, their statistics are not significantly affected by the Cubs’ pitchers.
Haha you threw me for a loop there for about 30 seconds.
If so, that’s a damn shame. Watching a defense and a pitcher learning to get a feel for the other and making the slightest adjustments as the season goes on is something I enjoy very much. Of course I am only able to pick up on this during Giants games because they’re the only team I have enough of a sample of during the regular season.
I forget what the numbers are but Bumgarner and Lester each have laughable postseason RISP numbers. To me that is the biggest indicator of A) Luck and B) pitching to their defense.
I thought Lester already did? Was there not a consensus from his Boston days that Lester is a “playoff pitcher”?
Sorry, but no. Context also matters.
Compare them in sudden-death games:
— Lester 2 starts, 9 runs over 14.1 IP, team lost both. He served up 6 runs in the 2014 WC game. In the 2008 ALCS game 7, he took a tough loss on 3 runs in 7 IP, but he couldn’t hold an early lead.
— Bumgarner has 2 shutouts in WC games, and a 5-zero save in a WS game 7, holding a 1-run lead all the way.
Or compare their World Series efforts:
— Lester, 1 run in 21 IP. Oh, but …
— Bumgarner, 1 run in 36 IP.
Obviously, both have been great, and maybe Lester hasn’t gotten enough credit. But there’s a valid reason that Bumgarner has the bigger rep.
In soccer terms, Lester vs. Bumgarner looks like this: tied in regulation, tied in overtime, Bumgarner wins on penalty kicks.
Considering their overall lines are basically the same, that implies that if Lester was worse in sudden-death games, then he was better in the others. Why should I care about sudden death games more? If you pitch better early in the series, you can avoid sudden death games entirely, which is part of why Lester only has two of them.
“Why should I care about sudden death games more?”
….
Seeing the arguments that people are busting out to try to distinguish Bumgarner from Lester even though all their important stats clearly are statistically identical just really goes to show the silliness of the “postseason reputation” thing in the first place. Some guy is quabbling over 1% K rate and 1% BB rate in a 100 inning sample? Please.
100 innings spread over 9 years no less!
Okay y’all I am getting downvoted left and right. I am literally trying to poke holes in in a guys postseason resume in which he has a 119 IP with a 2.50 ERA!!
The title of this article is “John Lester should have Madison Bumgarner’s Reputation” Here is the argument IMO
-Let’s completely ignore that baseball is made up of 9 IP segments called “games”
-Let’s completely ignore that some of these games are win or go home
-Let’s completely ignore defense
-Let’s completely ignore opponent quality v LHP
-Let’s normalize everything!
-Squint
-Hey their stats are almost the same! (Despite Lester being at least a smidgen worse in erevy single one)
-Lester even has 19 more IP!
-Done
John Lester is an Ace. John Lester is a treasure. John Lester has been at his best when his teams need him the most. John Lester is having an AMAZING run this year. I am so fucking excited to watch Lester pitch again I cannot wait. Maybe he throws 18 shutout innings this WS. We would all be lucky to see that.
But to say “John Lester should have Madison Bumgarner’s Reputation”
Is. Fucking. Stupid.
Now Dave runs a successful site which I enjoy immensely. Half the purpose of this site is to generate discussion which he accomplishes here. The purpose of headlines is to get people to read the article, which he successfully did. It’s just a really shitty article when read from a critics POV.