It's unlikely -- though not certain -- that Jon Lester will ever be elected to the Hall of Fame. Lester enjoyed a fine career, which ended Wednesday morning with the news that he was officially retiring, but it would seem to fall short of the standard -- if amorphous -- qualifications for entrance into Cooperstown.
In 16 seasons, Lester was named an All-Star just five times and received serious Cy Young consideration in just three of those seasons. His career win total of 200 is impressive, but pales in comparison to most other serious candidates for the Hall.
To put it in such stark terms: Lester's career could be judged as very good, but was seldom great.
Not that there's any shame in that. To merely last 16 seasons in the big leagues is an achievement in itself. Winning three championships -- all for two traditionally championship-starved franchises -- is a significant accomplishment and should not be discounted.
And there is this: Lester came close to not having a career at all, having been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in his second season in the big leagues. Then he pitched for 14 more seasons after that.
Winner. Cancer Survivor.
That, it seems, is legacy enough for one career.
The shame, of course, is that it did not all take place in Boston.
In 2014, nearing free agency, Lester wanted to remain with the Red Sox, only to be low-balled by Red Sox ownership. After trading him to Oakland at the deadline, the Sox made a halfhearted run at Lester in free agency that winter, but Lester (and most Red Sox fans) saw it for what it was: a feeble attempt to repair the brutal PR hit they took after dealing Lester away.
At the time, the Red Sox were insistent that starting pitchers who were 30 and older were bad investments. Lester had turned 30 earlier that season, and John Henry, knee-deep in his actuarial tables, had determined that the Sox would not be handing out multi-year deals to pitchers who had crossed this threshold. Too risky, the Sox said.
To be fair, there's plenty of data to suggest that pitchers in their 30's are frequently bad investments. Not always, but often.
It's just that Lester proved to be the exception to the rule. He wasn't a better pitcher with the Chicago Cubs, who signed him after 2014, than he had been with the Sox. Nor was he worse.
Instead, Lester was the same. Exactly the same.
In his nine seasons with the Red Sox, Lester had a 3.64 ERA and a .636 winning percentage.
In his six seasons with the Cubs, Lester had a 3.64 ERA and a .636 winning percentage.
It's probably not a coincidence that the mid-2014 trade of Lester signaled a serious downturn for the Red Sox. They finished in last place in 2014, and followed it up with another season in the cellar in 2015. It marked the first time the club had finished last in consecutive seasons since 1929-30. The Red Sox spent much of those two seasons unsuccessfully attempting to replace his formidable presence in their rotation.
Then, after the 2015 season, the Red Sox signed David Price, effectively a replacement for Lester, to a seven-year deal for $217 million. At the time, Price was (drum roll, please)... 30 years old. The Price contract was one year longer in length and $52 million more in value than the one the Cubs had given to land Lester (six years, $155 million) the winter before.
Price's career with the Red Sox was uneven, though not without its highlights. He won 17 games in his first year in Boston while leading the league in innings pitched, and two years later, won 16 while helping the Red Sox win a World Series. In retrospect, he probably should have been named the World Series MVP (2-0, 1.98 ERA in three appearances).
But Lester was both more consistent and durable with the Cubs than Price was with the Red Sox, to say nothing of a far better off-field fit. And from a return-on-investment, consider that they will have, by the end of 2022, paid Price $32 million to not pitch for them, having included him in the Mookie Betts deal with the Dodgers in an effort to further trim payroll.
In the postseason, Lester finished his career with a 2.51 postseason ERA. In three World Series starts for the Red Sox (one in the clinching Game 4 of 2007 and two more in 2013) Lester was 3-0 and allowed just one run in 21 innings.
In the end, Lester's departure from the Red Sox goes down in history as one that belongs with other unfortunate exits that were far more common with the Sox a generation ago. Like Carlton Fisk and Fred Lynn and Bruce Hurst before him, Lester should have been a member of the Red Sox for his entire career.
That he wasn't, serves as more of an indictment of others who made that decision for him.
Lester's career in Boston was far from perfect. In 2011, he was revealed to be part of the group of pitchers who indulged in "chicken and beer'' in the home clubhouse during games. Tellingly, however, Lester acknowledged his role and was contrite -- more than could be said of some of his teammates at the time.
Let Lester's career stand, too, as evidence that, for all the advances in analytics and data-driven research, sometimes intangibles matter, too. Accountability and consistency may not always be enough for a plaque in Cooperstown, but they're enviable career traits, nonetheless.