Chicago Cubs: Are there reasons to worry about the rotation?

Chicago Cubs: Nobody gets younger

Age is the main concern with Jon Lester. He is 35 years old and has a ton of miles on that arm, 2,366 regular season innings and 154 in the postseason. Last year we saw moments of velocity drop and mid-season struggles, his 4.39 FIP was much higher than his 3.32 ERA as he demonstrated an ability to work around problems when his stuff wasn’t at its best.

Not to say he was totally lucky last year, he had some very good stretches, but there were certainly times where his final stat-lines looked better than the contact he gave up. It is hard to mad at arguably the best free agent signing in Cubs history, his good has outweighed some rough patches by light years, but fearing further decline for a veteran like him is natural.

Lester is still probably the guy to trust in a big postseason game, (he certainly did his job in the Wild Card game), but the overall numbers here on out probably won’t be as good as they were in his prime. The fact of the matter is, Father Time always prevails, and we will see how it affects Lester in 2019.