Fantasy Faceoff: Jon Lester vs. Sonny Gray

Considered just outside the cream of the fantasy pitching crop, Jon Lester and Sonny Gray offer multi-category value and will be a boon to any fantasy roster.

At first blush, Lester had a disappointing debut season with the Chicago Cubs, posting an 11-12 record and a 3.34 earned run average. Gray, meanwhile, won 14 games on a scuffling Athletics squad while posting a 2.73 ERA and finishing third in AL Cy Young voting.

But who is the better fantasy option in 2016?

The Case for Lester

Lester is a proven innings eater, amassing 200 or more in seven of his last eight seasons. With no injury history, you know he's not going to miss time unless something freakish happens. He also finished seventh in the National League with 207 strikeouts last season.

You can chalk some of his failures up to bad luck. He received a paltry 3.8 runs of support per nine innings, tenth-fewest in the majors. Lester also stranded 71.8% of runners, the second-lowest rate of his career.

This string of terrible luck will scare people away. But Lester is the poster boy for why you shouldn't look at win-loss records to determine a pitcher's worth - either in fantasy or in reality. The Cubs' lineup looks even better in 2016, so that run support issue shouldn't repeat itself.

The Case for Gray

While he hasn't done it for as long as Lester, Gray has two consecutive seasons of more than 200 innings, so he isn't much of an injury concern, either. He made strides with his walk rate, shrinking it from 3.04 per nine innings in 2014 to 2.55 in 2015. He's also younger, so a steep drop-off is not likely as he enters his prime.

Gray has the benefit of pitching half of his games at O.co Coliseum. Kaufman Stadium in Kansas City was the only AL ballpark to allow fewer home runs in 2015. He is, so far, a model of consistency. His ground ball rate, home-run-to-fly-ball ratio and strand rate have not seen much deviation.

Perhaps surprisingly, Gray allowed fewer home runs away from Oakland in almost as many innings. He may have gotten lucky - his peripherals were worse on the road - but the results were there for much of the season. His stuff isn't flashy but, for two years running, he's returned excellent value relative to his draft position.

Beginner's Luck

Using fielding independent pitching (FIP) and batting average on balls in play (BABIP), it looks like Lester suffered from bad luck in 2015 while Gray benefited from good fortune.

While FIP doesn't change last year's results, it should give context into this year's projections. You can expect normalization. Lester could see his ERA shrink and Gray could be expected to regress in that category. Projections aren't exact, but Gray has yielded better results than his peripherals suggest he should have had for the first two seasons of his career.

Verdict

Lester is the choice, and it really isn't very close. Both are going off the board near the sixth round. Lester's strikeout potential is higher, he walks fewer batters, he's been consistent for a longer period of time, and Chicago is projected to win far more games than Oakland. This gives Lester the edge in pitcher wins.

Neither should be an especially poor draft choice, especially as your team's second or third pitcher, but if you find yourself weighing the two, Lester has to be the pitcher you choose. This is especially true after Gray has dealt with a 'dead arm' period during Spring Training. He's still on track, but that is concerning.