Chris Sale and Jon Lester intertwined? The Red Sox best hope so.
Lester's worst season was an outlier, and a catalyst that helped make him better. Maybe Sale's will be too.
COMMENTARY
Chris Sale’s 2019 season ended with relatively good news on Monday, in that he’s still on track to have a 2020 season. The inflammation in the lefty’s pitching elbow was nothing more sinister, and he’ll be checked again in six more weeks to see what rest does to remedy it. His final line will be thus: 147 1/3 innings, a 4.40 ERA, and a 10-15 record for his team in his starts, but also a FIP that’s a full run better than that ERA and 218 strikeouts, good for an MLB-leading 13.3 per nine innings.
It’s a big step down from his numbers in an elite seven-season run (2.91 ERA and 198 innings per season from 2012–18), but it’s also probably better than you’ll remember. Sale was still 10 percent better than league average based on ERA+, and was tied for 16th among MLB starting pitchers in WAR on Tuesday morning.
It’s certainly better than Jon Lester’s 2012 was, and heck knows we can’t stop talking about him around here, can we?
“It’s been a long year for a lot of people, for a lot of different reasons. I’m glad it’s over and we move on,” Lester told reporters on Oct. 2, 2012, after his final start of the Bobby Valentine season was cut short by a sore back. “Going to a much-needed offseason, regroup, and back to spring training next year ready to kick some people’s asses.”
Lester has for seven years running now, which is a big part of the reason why he’s what Mark Teixeira was for a long time around these parts: The answer for everything.
New York swooping in to get the free-agent first baseman just before Christmas 2008 became the undercurrent of every critical word about the Red Sox for years. He was arguably the Yankees’ best offensive player in their 2009 title run, he was what forced the long-maligned signings of John Lackey in 2009 and Carl Crawford in 2010 … it was the dark cloud that changed everything in the same way the bungled Lester negotiation five years ago was even as late as this spring, after a 119-win season.
“I think Chris [Sale] falls out of the norm because he’s just such a great — not just a great pitcher, but a great part of the team. As we saw in the World Series, he had quite an impact just being on the bench during the World Series,” owner John Henry said in February, Sale still unextended past 2019. “He’s a special player. We would love to be able to sign him.”
He did so a little more than a month later, and the Red Sox will be paying Sale for decades because of it. What happens these next five years will absolutely flavor how we view those checks, and Henry figures to be leading the parade of those looking for optimism from the 30-year-old Sale’s relative thud of a campaign.
Lester is not a perfect comp given he’s got 60 listed pounds on Sale and nowhere near the injury history, but I think it’s silly to pretend there wasn’t a hint of a makeup call in this spring’s decision. Lester turned 30 in January 2014, and had about 1,450 innings on his left arm when the Red Sox were making their long-term decision on him. Sale turned 30 a few days after he inked his extension, at which point he had just shy of 1,500 innings in his past.
The Red Sox certainly hope they’ll ride a similar track, given that Lester’s 4.82 ERA, 9-14 season in 2012 is easily the outlier in a stellar 14-year career. It hardly seemed that way then, the 28-year-old’s hits per nine having gone from 7.2 in his career 2010 to 7.8, then 9.5 in 2012. His fastball velocity was similarly down, from 93.5 mph to 92, and that’s all before we get to his place in the heart of the chicken and beer fiasco of 2011.
His struggles were a big part in the Red Sox shelling out resources to pry John Farrell from Toronto, the belief reconnecting with his former pitching coach — even if it was as his manager — would help turn his fortunes around. (One of their first reported conversations after the reunion was regarding Lester needing to cool his snipping at umpires.) Not that that stopped the Red Sox from reportedly shopping Lester that winter, calling Kansas City about acquiring then-prospect Wil Myers.
Ultimately, Lester was in camp early the following spring and the workhorse of the 2013 championship club — 213 innings in 33 starts, then going 4-1 in October with a 1.56 ERA. His next three seasons, split amongst the Red Sox, Oakland, and the Cubs in a way that still boggles the mind, were even better. Ninety-six regular season starts, to the tune of a 2.74 ERA and a 14.4 fWAR, tied for seventh best among pitchers in those three years.
You can fairly argue that Lester’s issues were more mental and Sale’s are more physical. I make the mention because, well, the Red Sox tied their wagon to the latter in March. They best hope something like this is in the offing, lest they replace the expiring Pablo Sandoval contract with another albatross.
“It’s nice to have that calendar year where you can turn the page on to a new season and start fresh again,” Lester said in late February 2013. “The last three months [of the 2012 season], I pounded away on myself to find out what was going on — trying different things in workouts, trying different things between starts. So once we got away, I took those first couple weeks off and it really helped mentally and physically to, you know, hit the reset button.”
Chris Sale’s reset button got pushed on Monday, the chase to claw out of the 0-6, 6.30 ERA hole of April finished without success. He will no doubt approach this winter with the same chip on his shoulder, and take this season as the same slap in the face, that Lester did in 2012–13. Sale’s been given an extended winter after an abbreviated one, and the full awareness that whatever preparation he and the team did a year ago didn’t work.
Big contracts bring big focus. Bryce Harper’s Phillies are having a similar sort of season to the Red Sox as they arrive in Boston for a two-game set: Unable to maintain the momentum needed for a playoff run. His skyscraper grand slam on Thursday to cap a five-run comeback against the Cubs felt like one of those catalyst moments on which big runs are built, but they totaled all of 10 hits in two weekend losses to San Diego, Harper leaving Sunday’s game with blurred vision apparently due to dehydration.
At 64-60, the Phillies are just two games out of a National League wild-card spot, but they’re 11-11 at home since the All-Star break and went from scoring 30 runs in winning four straight to scoring five in losing two in Philadelphia to an out-of-it Padres club. Jake Arrieta is done for the year. David Robertson, one of those relievers the Red Sox didn’t get last winter, just had Tommy John surgery and is probably done for 2020.
They’re not giving up either.
“They’re all big weeks now,” slumping Rhys Hoskins said. “I mean, they’re all big weeks all season, but obviously we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty here. I’m sure the atmosphere will be electric in Fenway like it always is, but we’re playing good baseball here. We feel like we are.”
In the first season of his 13-year megadeal, Harper is hitting .254, leads the National League in strikeouts, and is by one advanced measure outside the top 50 hitters in baseball. He essentially has the same fWAR (3.1) as Christian Vazquez (3.0), thanks largely to the latter’s defensive value. Eight years into his career, Harper’s been the superstar most think of him as only twice — his MVP 2015, and a 1.008-OPS season in 2017. They are the fluke years until he proves otherwise.
And while past performance does not guarantee future success, we can at least reasonably go into Chris Sale’s offseason believing when we next see him, he could again be capable of making 2019 his fluke.
It certainly beats the alternative.
