Jon Leicester, a major league leftist, announced his retirement, ending his 16-year career. His career is dazzling, winning the World Series three times, being selected for the Star Race five times, winning 200 in the regular season, squeezing into the top five of the Cy young prize three times, and in 2016, he ranked second in the National League of Nations and won the MVP of the National League Championship. His final career figures were fixed at 451 starts of 200-117 losses, 3.66 ERA and 2488 strikeouts in 2740.0 innings.
A big sign of the resistance to leicester, he has had at least 30 starts in 12 seasons of his career, the last season in the Nationals and Cardinals, he can also accumulate 28 starts, and in the last month of his career at the Cardinals, he started three times six times and was a quality starter, contributing to the Cardinals' final wave of winning streaks.
"It was the natural result," Lester said, "and my body got heavier and heavier, and the small problems that kept accumulating eventually turned into big problems." I don't want to end up saying I can't shoot someone else, I want to hand over my shirt myself."
Lester is supposed to be the second-only playoff pitcher in this generation after Madison Bonmgana, with a career playoff era of as low as 2.51. In the 2007 and 2013 seasons, he twice won the cup with the Red Sox, and he was also a big contributor to the 2016 Cubs breaking the spell, the seventh game of the World Series, he took a short break to relay, helping the Cubs survive the middle of the game.
In 2007, still rookie Leicester started game four of the World Series, helping the Red Sox sweep the Rockies 4-0, and in 2013, having become the team's ace, he twice threw 7.2 innings in a trump game against Adam Wainwright, and the Red Sox also won 4-2 with his two wins.
While Lester is certainly missing the Hall of Fame, his cumulative stats are not bad, he is the ninth left pitcher in modern baseball with 200 wins, a 60% win rate and a career ERA of less than 4.00, six of the other eight are Hall of Famers, and the two who did not make in are also named CC-Sabea.
In 2015, the Cubs signed Leicester to a $155 million free agent contract, and now the Cubs' coach David Rose, who is also his exclusive catcher of the year, praised Leicester, saying that he is very good at uniting teammates. The Cubs' core at that time was almost all raised on his own farm, with only Leicester and Jason Hayward, and considering his performance in 2016, Leicester's signing is also known as one of the most important signings in the history of the Cubs.
In the final half of his career, Leicester had the pleasure of pitching with his rivals Adil Molina and Wainwright, "it was a great feeling to play with them, and I now understand why the Cardinals are so successful every year".
Regarding the future, Lester said he would consider working for a television station and would not rule out attending the Cubs' spring training sessions to mentor the Cubs' young pitchers. "I don't want to wait for me to come off the field and hear something like, 'Did this player work hard?'" Lester said, "I will always be on the field to fight for the last point."
(Text/Geng Haoyang)