Chicago, IL (SportsNetwork.com) – Jon Lester was introduced to the media by the Chicago Cubs on Monday.<\/p>\n
Lester agreed to terms on a six-year contract reportedly worth $155 million. The deal includes a vesting option for the 2021 season.<\/p>\n
“I got a good sense of how crazy these fans are about their Cubs baseball,” Lester said at a downtown Chicago press conference. “It’s a huge honor to be part of this organization. We fully buy in, and we take on the responsibility of trying to bring this city a World Series.”<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old Lester went 6-4 with a 2.35 earned run average for the Oakland Athletics after he and outfielder Jonny Gomes were acquired in a blockbuster trade-deadline swap from the Red Sox for outfielder Yoenis Cespedes.<\/p>\n
Lester is most known for his prowess in the postseason, where he is 6-4 with 2.57 ERA in 14 career appearances (12 starts), including a perfect 3-0 mark with a sparkling 0.43 ERA in the World Series.<\/p>\n
Lester has a 116-67 record with a 3.58 ERA over his nine-year career.<\/p>\n
He turned down a $70 million contract extension from Boston during the spring, the team which he helped win two World Series titles (2007, 2013).<\/p>\n
“This signing really marks a transition of sorts for the Cubs, the start of a period where we are clearly very serious about bringing a World Series to the Cubs and the people of Chicago,” president of baseball operations Theo Epstein said. “It’s a great day for our fans. They’ve been so patient with us, incredibly patient, over the last few years and they truly deserve a pitcher and a person of this caliber to call their own.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chicago, IL (SportsNetwork.com) – Jon Lester was introduced to the media by the Chicago Cubs on Monday. Lester agreed to terms on a six-year contract reportedly worth $155 million. The deal includes a vesting option for the 2021 season. “I got a good sense of how crazy these fans are about their Cubs baseball,” Lester […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[30,207,208],"class_list":["post-27255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-cubs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27256,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27255\/revisions\/27256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}