Say hey, baseball: Jon Lester needs to make a decision

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Someday, Jon Lester won’t be the primary angle for this column. The problem is that until he makes his decision on where he is signing, he’s the huge story, because everything else is waiting on him. Well, almost everything, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

The Giants made their pitch to Lester with a little help from catcher Buster Posey. None of the other teams chasing him can show off an established catcher as good as Posey -- not offensively, not defensively -- so that might be the kind of thing that tips the scales in the Giants’ favor. In fact, depending on who you ask, Lester’s decision is already between the Giants and the Cubs, leaving the Red Sox and the Dodgers behind. The problem with that Lester still had to have what were supposed to be his final meetings with both Boston and Los Angeles, so while the Giants and Cubs might have been in the lead at that moment, it simply could have been a matter of scheduling.

In fact, now that he’s seen all four teams recently, word is that he has an offer of six years and around $150 million from all four of them. Even if the dollars aren’t exactly equal, they might be in Lester’s eyes for a couple of reasons: for one, he’s said he’s not looking to take the most money, he’s looking for where he thinks he’ll enjoy the next six years the most. Second, Lester’s agents tend to set different price goals for different teams, and consider an offer worthy if the team reaches their individualized goal. The Dodgers’ target amount could have been $155 million or so, the Cubs $145 million, the Red Sox $148 million, etc.: we won’t know until we hear what each team actually offered, but we do know all four are close to Lester’s reported $150 million target.

Phil Rogers from MLB.com, formerly of the Chicago Tribune, believes the Cubs have the best chance at Lester based on what he knows of the situation, followed by the Giants, Red Sox, and Dodgers. We’ll find out later on Tuesday if he’s right. Or hey, maybe on Wednesday, because this hasn’t gone on quite long enough yet.