Tuesday, January 1, 2008

The Polls Are Closed: How Many Wins Will Lester Get?

With more than 100 responses, 11-15 wins was the most popular choice by far, earning almost half of the total votes. Win totals can often be a crap-shoot. How many wins Lester will get next year depends quite a bit on what team he plays for. But I can see why most people thought Lester would win 11-15 games.

In 144.1 career innings, Lester is 11-2. Next year, Lester will likely get 30-40 more innings, and he'll be a year more adjusted to the majors as well as a year more removed from cancer and chemotherapy. Maybe it's skill, maybe it's luck, maybe it's both, but Lester has put up good win totals over his short major league career.

For what it's worth, from 2006 to 2007, Lester lowered his ERA by 0.19, his WHIP by 0.19, and his BAA by .038. But like I've said many times before, he needs to get his walk rates down and he only improved them marginally from 2006 to 2007. I look forward to seeing what he can do in 2007 when he's completely healthy, regardless of what team he's playing for.

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