I am with Connor on the Lester as a mid-rotation starter.
I will take Steve's challenge to name more than 5 teams where he wouldnt be a #2 starter:
The following teams, generally in order of how solid the argument that Lester is #3:
1. New York (CC & AJ)
2. Arizona (Haren & Webb)
3. Seattle (Felix & Bedard)
4. LA Angels (Lackey & Santana)
5. San Fran (Tim & Cain)
6. Cincy (Volquez, Cueto, Harang)
7. Atlanta (Lowe & Vazquez)
8. Tampa (Shields,Kazmir, & Garza)
9. Cubs (Zambrano, Dempster, Harden)
10. LA Dodgers (Billingsley & Kershaw)
Lester would only be the undisputed ace on 4 teams:
Baltimore, Washington, Pitsburgh, and Texas.
Although, he would have an argument for ace status on:
Florida - against Nolasco
St Louis - Wainwright (but a healthy Carpenter is better)
KC - Grienke
Oakland - Duchscherer
Colorado - Jimenez, Cook, and Francis.
Mil - Yovani!
Yahoo has Lester ranked as #21 fantasy starter, but I think we can all agree Lester's value is inflated by pitching in Fenway (yes, its a pitchers park!) and by playing with Boston's offense and bullpen behind him.
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I think his value is also inflated by his cancer recovery (I mean, that's the kind of thing that gets Jon Kruk to call you a "professional baseball player").
If you look at it, the second half of last season was his first outstanding performance since a pretty good showing in AAA in 2006.
The obvious hole in my argument is that his second half of 2008 *did happen*, and that can't be taken away from him... but the fact that he sustained that level for only half a year and for the first time since 2006 make his claim to ace status no more legitimate than Ricky Nolasco's (who was actually even better than Lester in the second half of 2008).
That said, not too many 25-year-olds are as good as he is and he's still got plenty of time to improve. In the long term, I'm bullish on Lester, but I think neither the Sox nor fantasy players should be paying for the post-cancer hype.
... although I'd take Lester over Dempster and Zambrano.
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