Jon Lester Destinations: Giants vs. Cubs

Aug 7, 2014; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics starting pitcher Jon Lester (31) throws to the Minnesota Twins in the first inning of their MLB baseball game at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Lance Iversen-USA TODAY Sports

The writing on the wall at the Winter Meetings is that Jon Lester will sign with a new team on Tuesday and the frontrunners are the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Cubs.  Both teams have different pros and cons for baseball reasons, but is one that much more advantageous over the other in terms of fantasy baseball?

While it is generally known that the Giants play in a ballpark that creates a lower scoring environment, especially compared to the Cubs, Lester has minimal experience pitching in each stadium.

Jon Lester has two career starts at AT&T Park and one start at Wrigley Field.  The results of those starts can be found in this table:

[table id=1295 /]

Lester’s start at Wrigley is certainly respectable, but he was dynamic in his two outings by the Bay.  However, there is no real evidence that we can learn from this data because the sample size is too small.  Again, the best information to take away from this is that it is easier to pitch in San Francisco.

Since Jon Lester has made the vast majority of his home starts in his career at the bandbox in Boston, I was curious to see how he faced at Fenway versus the road.  (A small portion of the data uses Oakland as the home of Jon Lester due to the fact that he spent roughly three months there this year).

Lester has a career ERA of 3.50 at Fenway Park over 769.1 innings where his ERA on the road is 3.66 over 826.2 innings.  His home K/BB of 2.70 is marginally better than his road K/BB of 2.65.  Lester also has a lower FIP and xFIP at Fenway than he does away from it.

The most interesting home/road split for me was that Jon Lester actually has a lower home run to fly ball ratio at home even though Fenway is one of the easiest stadiums to hit a home run in.  Over the majority of his career, Lester has made a significant number of starts at the many hitter-friendly parks of the AL East, but I really expected a lower HR/FB% on the road.  It appears that Jon Lester just pitches better behind his home crowd.

I feel very comfortable with his potential performance in 2015 no matter where Lester calls home, but it is certainly likely that going to the San Francisco Giants would yield marginally better results than if he went to the Chicago Cubs.  Of course, Lester could still land anywhere and hopefully we learn of his landing destination tomorrow.