Chicago Cubs: Is Jon Lester actually good at holding runners?
Jon Lester picked off Ryan Zimmerman in spite of his known fear of throwing to first. But is he secretly good at managing the running game?
Cubs’ pitcher Jon Lester picked Nationals’ first baseman Ryan Zimmerman off first base in Game 4 of the National League Division Series. This is a noteworthy event, not just because everything in a playoff game is noteworthy, but also because Lester is supposed to be terrible at holding runners. In fact he didn’t throw over to first at all from 2013-2015, and when he finally did it wasn’t pretty:
Naturally, opposing base runners got wise to Lester’s inability to hold them close, most notably in the 2014 American League wild-card game in which the Royals ran all over him and the A’s. In 2015, an astonishing 55 runners attempted to steal on him, and 44 succeeded.
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Since then, something strange happened. While his reputation didn’t improve, his ability to hold runners actually did. 41 runners tried to steal against him in 2016. That’s still a lot, but 13 of them were caught. His 32% caught stealing percentage was somehow five points better than league average.
This year, however, Lester managed the running game as well as any pitcher in baseball. Only 19 out of 31 attempted base thieves succeeded. His 39% caught stealing percentage was 18th best out of the 58 qualified starting pitchers in MLB. Furthermore, the twelve runners thrown out stealing against him were more than any other pitcher in baseball.
Perhaps base runners are too comfortable against Lester. His reputation as a pitcher incapable of throwing over still persists, but he’s learned to use it to his advantage. That was certainly the case in a June 3 game against the Cardinals with Tommy Pham on base.
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There will always be runners taking larger leads against Lester than they should. That’s fine by him. But Tommy Pham won’t make that mistake again, and now neither will Ryan Zimmerman.