Respect for a great career! Thanks for helping bring a World Series to the Cubs!

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Game 7 was problematic, but he was a gamer.

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Nas: Blago, who has single handedly destroyed CFMB?

Blago: https://youtube.com/shorts/Lftdxd-YXt8?feature=share

"You can’t love your country only when you win." -President Biden

https://youtu.be/R6e4ruziZBI?si=1G4W1vbh0eGQuHfU

He was used incorrectly in Game 7 - because Merlot Joe is a shitty in game manager, Joe panicked and warmed Lester up in the third for no fucking good reason.

Lester is firmly in the Hall of the Very Good. He deserves to knock around the bottom of a HOF ballot list for a couple of years before eventually fading before the 5% line.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Factoid for Lester: his W/L percentage and ERA for the Red Sox and the Cubs were IDENTICAL.

Boston: 110-63 (.636), ERA 3.64
Chicago: 77-44 (.636), ERA 3.64

Wasn't worth $150m, but certainly lived up to his prior performance.

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He was significantly better in the playoffs for the Cubs.

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Nas: Blago, who has single handedly destroyed CFMB?

Blago: https://youtube.com/shorts/Lftdxd-YXt8?feature=share

"You can’t love your country only when you win." -President Biden

https://youtu.be/R6e4ruziZBI?si=1G4W1vbh0eGQuHfU

He was a major piece that helped bring a world series to the Cubs. So I am not sure how you can say he wasn't worth the money. He was way more worth all the money they have shelled out to Heyward.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Not a failure like Heyward by any means; I'm just saying that for 6 x $25m I expected more than one top-5 CY season.

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Recency bias. His last two seasons were not all that good. He was vital to the Cubs success in 15 and 16. Even as a Sox fan and Cubs hater, there is no question that Lester is one of the best FA signings in Chicago sports over the last 20-30 years. He might be the best Cubs FA signing of all time. If not THE best, he's in the team photo.

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He had a sub 2 ERA in the playoffs. Getting it done when it matters most.

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Nas: Blago, who has single handedly destroyed CFMB?

Blago: https://youtube.com/shorts/Lftdxd-YXt8?feature=share

"You can’t love your country only when you win." -President Biden

https://youtu.be/R6e4ruziZBI?si=1G4W1vbh0eGQuHfU

Not a great first year, but good in the playoffs for the Cubs. Great for the Red Sox in the years they won it. And the goddamn A's should have let him finish the eighth inning against KC in the wildcard game.

That "clean inning" complaint of his was kinda bullshit. But whatever. He was a quirky guy.

I know Chet says "Hall of Very Good," and I agree, but he was durable for a long time and was on many successful teams. I'm not saying he's a Hall of Famer. I'm surprised he only had 200 wins.

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Yes

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Hard to say. He average 2.8 WAR over his contract. Was he key to the WS? Yes, but was his contract a hindrance to adding payroll after that? Obviously the Cubs had a ton of bad money on the books that wasn't his fault. I just wish they would've taken a true stud like Scherzer who was a top CY finisher every year. But I agree that Lester was the next best option that year (even though he signed before Scherzer).

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I don't think his contract helped, but it certainly was something the Cubs could live with and was not the albatross that the Heyward and Darvish deals- among others- were.

If you were to list the reasons the Cubs never got back to the WS after their fortunate 2016, Lester would be at the very bottom if he even made the list at all.

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Nice. But I can agree with your last sentence.

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If I had one game to win and the choices were in their prime Jon Lester or HoF Mike Mussina I know who’d I take .

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Like most long term deals, the idea is that you assume the last two years will be a mess. They were. Sometimes they aren't (Scherzer) but most times they are (99% of long term deals to guys in their 30s). That said for the first fours of the deal he finished in the top 10 of CY voting twice, pitched wonderfully in the playoffs, and was a durable good regular season starter (12 WAR over that time) if unspectacular. I think that's what Theo wanted, a steady hand on the tiller at the top of the rotation.

That game one against the Giants in the NLDS is just great with Lester and Cueto throwing up zeroes.

Lesters numbers are a little skewed by the time in which he pitched. He was more of an old school pitcher who would have won more games had he pitched in a different era. Not saying he would have got to 300 wins, but he would have gave it a good run. He would have been perfectly content going 8 innings every start

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I know I flipped out when I found out he could not throw over to first. But his contract ended up being money pretty well spent.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

I couldn't believe it when they said that in 2014 he threw over to first exactly zero times. Yet somehow he was never penalized for having the yips....being fast to the plate was key.

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Also, nobody has the skill to steal a base anymore. I was watching some old 1980s baseball the other night and the announcers were talking about how teams would want a young Jimmy Key to throw over because his move was so painfully slow that the high quality base stealers could make it to second even when Key had them "picked off".

What about the speech??!!

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If we nominate Trump we will get destroyed & we'll deserve it.- L Graham
I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.- DJT 2016
MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!- DJT 12/25/23

I thought about this since I read your post, and honestly, I think he might be the best.

Dawson is really the only other guy in the running, although Zobrist was what everyone expected him to be and his divorce mess actually got the cubs out of the last year of his deal. Honestly, the FA signing history of the Cubs has been absolutely brutal.

I think a lot of people realized that years 5-6 basically included money deferred from years 1-3, and that instead of 25x6=150 it should have been thought of as 30-30-30-25-22-13. From that perspective, the contract was a bit of an overpay but he was a scarce resource.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Bad teams typically have to pay more in FA. Look at what Baez managed to pull out of the Tigers and what Seager pulled out of the Rangers.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Dawson might be the best because he was an MVP and an everyday player. But they didn't win anything with him. Zobrist was a nice signing, but he wasn't a game changer like Dawson or Lester was.

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Dawson was on the 1989 NLCS team, but that series didn't go well and Hawk was anemic in the playoffs.

But yeah, I think you are right in that Lester is likely the best, Hawk #2 and then Zobrist 3rd. After that the list gets awful real fast.

1. Lester 2. Zobrist 3. Dawson....
I'm sorry...they did jack shit with Dawson. Zobrist was a role player, but that role was pretty damn important.
Lester's contract was bad for the last 3 years, but they won it all in large part because of his pitching. even with him being overpaid the last 3 years you have to call it worth every penny. You can live with one albatross of contract.

Jason Heyward on the other hand....that's the one they're still painfully dealing with. Woof.

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Heretofore unmentioned Cubs great free agents...

Randy Meyers. 3 years at just over 3 mil per. Huge save percentage
Dave Kingman. 48 HR is '79.
Ted Lilly. Yeah, he was better than you remember.
Ryan Dempster. A reclamation project for half a mil. Not a bad run. If he'd just go away now.
Moises Alou. He was a very solid FA, 76 HR for the coob.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Those are probably the best of the rest but how about this shitshow:

The unholy trinity of George Bell, Danny Jackson, and Dave Smith in 1991.

Hayward obviously. Kimbrell - terrible. LaTroy Hawkins. Todd Hundley. Milton Bradley. Candy Maldonado. Matt Stairs. Jeff Blauser. I mean, I should probably stop at this point.