Chicago Cubs: Jon Lester joins growing list of declined options

Jon Lester was the latest casualty of the declined options bonanza going on in Major League Baseball, as the Chicago Cubs announced the move on Friday.

No player with a club option is safe this off-season, and Jon Lester just became the latest casualty.

The Chicago Cubs declined his $25 million option, triggering a $10 million buyout.

This isn’t quite as high on the “unbelievable” scale as other declined options this week. Brad Hand and Kolten Wong also became free agents after their clubs declined their very reasonable options.

And after Lester’s 2020 season, there was a possibility this would happen anyway. He’s 36 years old and he pitched like it this year. He posted a 5.16 ERA, and was in the bottom 10% of the league in barrel rate at 12.3%, xSLG at .515, and strikeout rate at 15.5%. It’s pretty tough to have success in this league if you can’t either strike people out or induce soft contact. In fact, his expected ERA was even worse than his actual ERA, at 5.69.

And this wasn’t just a product of the small 2020 sample size. Sure his 2020 numbers were a huge step back, but Lester was hardly productive in 2019 either. He posted a 4.46 ERA with an expected ERA over 5. He didn’t get barreled up quite as often and struck out more batters, but the numbers are still ugly for someone making $25 million a year.

That kind of production is hardly worth that $25 million. So the Cubs easily could have decided to take that $10 million bath anyway to renegotiate a more reasonable contract. But with the league wide payroll cutbacks this year, it was a no-brainer move. Sure, Lester will be on the open market, and other teams can bid on him. But I can’t imagine too many teams are lining up for his services.

In all likelihood, Jon Lester will be back on the Chicago Cubs in 2021 for a lot less than $25 million.