The Cubs win the bidding for Jon Lester:
Maddon said he was eager to hear why Lester chose the Cubs.
“He’s been [to the World Series] before. He understands what it feels like. I want to believe that he could foresee the same thing happening here,” Maddon said.
The manager noted that he said in his opening news conference that he believed the Cubs were a playoff team, but added that he thought the Cubs could contend sooner with the addition of Lester.
“Yeah. It definitely sends that message about how [Cubs president Theo Epstein] and the group feels about this particular group, but understand we have a lot of young players that have to grow up, and we have to do a good job of nurturing that and making it happen,” Maddon said. “It’s possible, but having Jon there definitely adds to the flavor and the believability.”
I’m sure we’ll hear more as the day progresses. It looks like the Cubs were willing to go $5 million higher over the life of the contract and included a vesting option. I thought he would sign again with Boston, but there is a big Boston flavor in the Cubs front office now.
As a Red Sox fan, I have profoundly mixed feelings this morning. I love Jon Lester, and would be much happier to have him on the Red Sox for the rest of his career. So I’m very disappointed that he went to Chicago.
But as an analyst, I think it’s a bad contract. I like him enough that I was willing to have Boston give him a bad contract, but maybe not quite that bad.
So I’m very sorry not to have the player, but not sorry not to have the contract.