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Adam Wainwright

NL Notes: Wainwright, Dodgers, Phillies

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A 2022 season shortened by the lockout would have a statistical impact on every player, particularly veteran names like Adam Wainwright.  The Cardinals veteran is looking forward to one final season with retiring longtime teammate Yadier Molina, and if the duo joins forces for 20 more Wainwright starts, they’ll set a new record for most games started by a battery (breaking the Mickey Lolich/Bill Freehan mark of 324 starts).  “Any time you can say you had the most all-time ‘anything’ in baseball is a real accomplishment,” Wainwright told Rick Hummel of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  “I just look so much forward to having an opportunity to break that record with my buddy, Yadi.  I hope we get enough starts to make that happen.  We just need the season to start.”

To this end, Wainwright is hopeful of a good result in labor talks between the league and players, but feels “these owners are going to have to come around, though. They’re kind of crazy with their asks.  I guess when you own the company, you want to see how far you can stretch it.  The game of baseball is a very lucrative thing for players and owners.  The ones that get left out of that are always the fans, unfortunately.  Baseball sometimes just needs to get out of its own way and realize we could be the only show going.”

Though a delay to the start of Spring Training seems inevitable, Wainwright is continuing to work out as usual as he prepares for his 17th big league campaign.  This work was temporarily delayed by a recent bout of COVID-19, though Wainwright said his symptoms were relatively mild.

More from around the National League….

  • “The Dodgers seem to be positioning themselves to have a young wave of pitching ready in the second half of next season,” The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya writes, citing Dustin May’s return from Tommy John rehab and the impending big league debut of prospect Ryan Pepiot.  Los Angeles hasn’t been shy about immediately putting its young arms into key roles in the rotation or bullpen, so Ardaya believes the Dodgers will look to acquire a veteran “stopgap” kind of starter to cover some innings before the youngsters arrive.  Clayton Kershaw’s free agency also continues to loom over the L.A. offseason, yet Ardaya feels the Dodgers would “likely” still try to land that second-tier arm even if Kershaw also re-signs with the team.  Such moves would give the Dodgers six starters on paper (with Kershaw and the stopgap joining Walker Buehler, Julio Urias, Andrew Heaney, and Tony Gonsolin) before even considering the likes of May or Pepiot, though having a surplus would be a welcome problem for a Dodgers team that had its depth thinned by injuries in 2021.
  • The Phillies hired Chris Fonnesbeck as the top analyst in their research and development department earlier this offseason, The Athletic’s Matt Gelb reports.  Fonnesbeck worked in the Yankees’ analytics department from 2019-21, and also spent the 2018 season working as a consulting analyst for the Brewers.  The Phils have put a new focus on their analytics team this winter, hiring Arirudh Kilambi as the team’s new assistant GM and putting him in charge of R&D.

Cardinals, Adam Wainwright Agree To Extension

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Adam Wainwright is staying in St. Louis. The Cardinals announced an agreement to bring the right-hander back for the 2022 season. Wainwright’s deal comes with a $17.5MM salary. The deal also includes a full no-trade clause, although Wainwright has long had guaranteed no-trade rights as a player with more than ten years of big league service, the last five of which have come with his current team. Wainwright is represented by Aegis Sports Management.

Adam Wainwright | Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

Wainwright, who turned 40 at the end of August, has turned back the clock to deliver one of the best seasons of his career in 2021. He’s second among all Major League pitchers with 206 1/3 innings pitched and has turned in a 3.05 ERA that stands as the fifth-best mark he’s ever notched over a full season.

Though he’s averaging just 89.3 mph on his heater this season, Wainwright has avoided hard contact, displayed strong command (six percent walk rate) and kept the ball on the ground at an above-average clip. That pairs nicely with the all-world infield defense in St. Louis and has helped Wainwright thrive even in spite of a below-average 21 percent strikeout rate. He’s also kept the ball in the yard at his lowest rate since 2014 (0.92 HR/9, 11.7 percent homer-to-flyball rate).

That excellent season will likely get Wainwright some votes in Cy Young balloting, even if he’s not favored to win it. (Corbin Burnes, Max Scherzer, Zack Wheeler and Walker Buehler are among the other top contenders.) It also positioned Wainwright to handily top this season’s $8MM salary, which has turned into a bargain for a scorching-hot Cardinals team that won 17 straight games to clinch a Wild Card berth — a sudden-death showdown for which they’ve already announced Wainwright as the starting pitcher.

Retaining Wainwright gives the Cardinals some additional certainty in the rotation next year. He’ll slot in alongside fellow righties Jack Flaherty, Miles Mikolas and Dakota Hudson, the latter of whom just returned from Tommy John surgery. Top pitching prospect Matthew Liberatore could be ready for his debut early in 2022, and the Cards have a handful of other in-house options, including Jake Woodford, Johan Oviedo and, if they want to move him from the bullpen to a starting role, Alex Reyes.

The Cards could of course dip their toes into the offseason market for starting pitching. They’re currently set to lose Kwang Hyun Kim, J.A. Happ and Jon Lester to free agency, and a lack of depth nearly sank their season earlier this summer when the majority of their rotation hit the injured list. St. Louis had under $90MM in guaranteed contracts on the books in 2022 before re-signing Wainwright — Matt Carpenter and Carlos Martinez will be off the books once their 2022 options are declined — so there’s certainly room to add to the payroll.

From a broader perspective, Wainwright’s return also sets the stage for an emotional season at Busch Stadium. He’s not yet made a declaration that the 2022 campaign will be his final season in the Majors, but given his age, that’s of course a possibility. Even if Wainwright sets his sights on pitching beyond next season, the 2022 campaign will be a farewell tour for Yadier Molina, who has announced his intention to retire following what will be his 19th season in St. Louis.

Wainwright and Molina are an iconic duo in St. Louis — a battery pairing emblematic of the repeated contenders put forth during this generation of Cardinals baseball. They’ve won a pair of World Series rings together, in 2006 and 2011, and there are few more memorable moments in recent Cardinals history than Wainwright buckling Carlos Beltran to close out the ’06 NLCS and then fanning Brandon Inge to clinch the organization’s first World Series in (at the time) more than two decades. Molina, naturally, was on the receiving end of both pitches.

Regardless of Wainwright’s future status, it’ll be the last season that Cardinals fans can root on a pair that seems destined to have their numbers retired and head into the team’s Hall of Fame. At 184 career wins, Wainwright will have a chance to cross the 200 mark next year as well — a milestone reached only by 119 players in big league history.

Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch first reported that Wainwright and the Cardinals had agreed to an extension. Jon Heyman of the MLB Network reported the contract was worth more than $15MM. The Associated Press reported the $17.5MM figure and the presence of the no-trade clause.

Cardinals, Wainwright Optimistic About Contract Talks

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Adam Wainwright has already announced his intentions to return for a 17th Major League season in 2022, and the widespread expectation is that he and the Cardinals will eventually agree to a new contract. Per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the two sides have been encouraged by “introductory” contract discussions and hope a new deal will be hammered out “in the near future.”

Wainwright turned 40 a month ago, but the right-hander isn’t showing his age whatsoever. To the contrary, he’s enjoying his best season in at least seven years. Wainwright is one of just three pitchers in Major League Baseball to have surpassed 200 innings in 2021, and his current 200 1/3 frames are already the most he’s thrown in a single season since his All-Star 2014 campaign, when he finished third in National League Cy Young voting. Wainwright currently boasts a 3.05 ERA with a 21.2 percent strikeout rate that’s a bit below the league average but strong walk and ground-ball percentages (6.0 and 46.9, respectively).

Wainwright’s fastball hasn’t averaged even 90 mph since the 2017 season, but that lack of velocity hasn’t hindered him so far, as he continues to rely on impeccable command and weak contact. Wainwright’s 21.5 percent called-strike rate is the highest of any qualified pitcher in baseball by a wide margin — Lance McCullers Jr. is second at 19.9 percent — and he’s comfortably better than average in terms of opponents’ average exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate, according to Statcast.

The Cardinals were idle for much of the 2020-21 offseason, as ownership perhaps waited on additional clarity regarding potential attendance numbers in the wake of the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign and the total lack of ticket revenue. Wainwright kickstarted the team’s offseason dealings when he agreed to a one-year, $8MM deal to return to the club on Jan. 29. Nolan Arenado was acquired just three days later, and Yadier Molina re-signed a week after that.

This time around, Molina has already re-signed (and surely campaigned for his longtime battery-mate to do the same). The 39-year-old backstop inked a one-year, $10MM extension back on Aug. 24 and announced that the 2022 season will be his last before retirement. That $10MM sum marked a slight raise for Molina over this year’s $9MM salary, and one would imagine that based on Wainwright’s brilliant year, he’d be in line for an even larger pay bump heading into the 2022 season. Wainwright has already unlocked bonuses based on games started, and he only needs a Top 10 finish in NL Cy Young balloting to receive an additional $500K bonus — an outcome that seems quite likely given his workload and general excellence on the mound this season.

Adam Wainwright Intends To Pitch In 2022

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The Cardinals have gotten fantastic work from Adam Wainwright for the bulk of his career, and that’s again been the case in 2021. Despite having just turned 40 years old, the veteran right-hander has been one of the better pitchers in the National League. With no signs of diminishing effectiveness, Wainwright intends to return for the 2022 season, he tells Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat (Twitter link).

Wainwright was a multi-time All-Star and Cy Young award contender at his peak from 2009-14, but he looked to have lost some effectiveness in the immediate aftermath of an April 2015 Achilles tear. The veteran had his worst four seasons from 2016-19, looking as if he’d settled in as more a competent back-of-the-rotation arm than the ace-caliber hurler he’d been earlier in his career.

That changed last season, when Wainwright posted a 3.15 ERA over 65 2/3 innings. Because of the truncated nature of the 2020 campaign, it seemed easy to write that level of performance off as a sample size blip and expect Wainwright to return to something closer to the cumulative 4.58 ERA he’d managed over the prior four seasons. Even the Cardinals seemed a bit apprehensive about buying completely into Wainwright’s 2020 resurgence, as he re-signed on a lower-cost $8MM guarantee last winter.

It’s impossible to dismiss Wainwright now, though, as he’s been excellent over a full season’s worth of work. He owns a 2.91 ERA across 176 innings, the sixteenth-lowest mark among the 104 pitchers with 100+ innings pitched. Wainwright’s 22.6% strikeout rate and 6.1% walk percentage aren’t far off his best marks in those regards, and he’s induced ground-balls at a solid 46.8% clip. While he doesn’t have overpowering raw stuff, Wainwright has generally succeeded at avoiding damaging contact with pinpoint command of his sinker and more liberal usage of his signature curveball, as Ben Clemens of FanGraphs recently explored.

Wainwright is again scheduled to reach free agency this offseason, although it’s hard to envision him landing anywhere other than St. Louis. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported last week that the club intended to present a one-year extension offer to Wainwright in the near future. And after bringing back franchise catcher Yadier Molina for one final run in 2022, it stands to reason the St. Louis front office is equally motivated to work out an agreement to keep Wainwright in the fold for the seventeenth consecutive season.

Cardinals Notes: Wainwright, Flaherty, Fernandez

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The Cardinals just keep playing the Cardinal Way. They haven’t been as good as the Brewers, as dramatic as the Cubs, or as divisive as the Reds, but after trouncing Milwaukee last night, the Cardinals are just 1.5 games out of the second wild card spot. It was a familiar pair leading the way as Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina synced up as the starting battery for the 300th time. They are now the fourth most-prolific duo of all-time, and if they make 25 more starts together, they’ll be at the top of the all-time list.

Unsurprisingly, the Cardinals are planning a one-year extension offer for their longtime ace, whenever he’s ready, writes Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Molina is already locked in for 2022 — his final season before retirement. There are not sufficient superlatives to quantify Wainwright’s standing in baseball, but even isolating his contributions this year, he’s one of the most reliable starters in the game: 27 starts, 176 innings, 2.91 ERA, 3.6 fWAR. The 40-year-old amazingly ranks third in the Majors in innings pitched, behind only Zack Wheeler and Walker Buehler.

In terms of the Cardinals’ other ace, Jack Flaherty could return this season in a bullpen/piggyback role, notes Goold. Just a few weeks ago it seemed that the prudent call would be to shut Flaherty down for the year, but with a wild card spot very much in play, Flaherty could still make an impact. An oblique injury put Flaherty on the 60-day injured list earlier, but after a brief return, he went back on the shelf with a shoulder strain. His return could be a huge boon to the Cardinals in September if he’s able to come back firing on all cylinders.

Junior Fernandez, however, has been shut down for the year with a Grade 2 right lat strain, per MLB.com’s Zachary Silver (via Twitter). The injury will not require surgery, and Fernandez should have no problem getting ready for 2022. The 24-year-old has made 18 appearances out of the pen, tossed 20 2/3 innings, and logged a 5.66 ERA/5.14 FIP.

Molina: 2022 “Will Be My Final Season”

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If there was any doubt after yesterday’s one-year contract extension, Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina confirmed in a press conference today that he plans to retire after the 2022 season. “Yes, yes it will be my final season,” Molina plainly stated (Twitter link via Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

That was the expectation the moment the deal was finalized, as president of baseball operations John Mozeliak even called the 2022 campaign Molina’s final season in the team’s press release announcing the extension. Still, it’s notable to hear the player himself publicly confirm as much.

Molina, 39, is well past his peak production but is still delivering offense that falls roughly in line with that of a league-average catcher. He’s batting .259/.304/.375 with eight homers and 16 doubles so far in 2021, walking at a 5.7 percent clip and still striking out at a 15.7 percent rate that is well south of the league average. His 43 percent caught-stealing rate behind the dish is among the best in the game.

It was strange this past offseason to consider the possibility of Molina playing somewhere other than St. Louis, but he reached the free-agent market for the first time in his illustrious career and unsurprisingly drew interest from several clubs. He’ll avoid any speculation of playing for a new club this time around, cementing himself as a lifelong Cardinal with the extension and today’s announcement.

Notably, as Cardinals fans now turn their attention to Adam Wainwright, Molina touched on the subject of his longtime teammate’s future (Twitter link via Zachary Silver of MLB.com). Molina noted that Wainwright lobbied heavily for him to return to St. Louis last offseason. “Now, it’s my turn,” Molina said in reference to Wainwright, adding that he’d “love to finish my career with him.”

Wainwright is also playing the 2021 season on a one-year contract, and he’s said in the past that he’ll need to discuss the matter with his family before determining whether he’ll continue his own career into the 2022 campaign. Through 162 2/3 innings, Wainwright has a 3.10 ERA, three complete games and a shutout. He’ll turn 40 next Monday.

2021-22 Qualifying Offer Candidates

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With the trade deadline in the rearview mirror and a little more than six weeks remaining in the regular season, plenty of front offices are turning their attention towards the upcoming offseason. The first notable decision for many clubs will be to decide whether to tag one or more of their top impending free agents with a qualifying offer.

As a reminder, the qualifying offer is a one-year contract offer teams can make to certain impending free agents. The precise value of the QO has yet to be calculated, but it’s determined as the average salary of the game’s 125 highest-paid players. Last season, the QO value was set at $18.9MM. If the player accepts the offer, he returns to his current team on that one-year deal. If he rejects, his previous team would receive draft pick compensation should he sign elsewhere.

Last season, six players (George Springer, Trevor Bauer, J.T. Realmuto, DJ LeMahieu, Kevin Gausman and Marcus Stroman) received qualifying offers. Gausman and Stroman accepted the QO, while Realmuto and LeMahieu re-signed with their current clubs as free agents. The Reds and Astros received compensatory picks (used on Jay Allen and Chayce McDermott, respectively) when Bauer and Springer departed.

The collective bargaining agreement prohibits a player from being tagged with a qualifying offer multiple times in his career. (A list of every active big leaguer who has previously received a QO is available here). Similarly, in order to be eligible, the player must have spent the entire preceding season on the same team. Players traded midseason cannot be tagged with a QO.

With the majority of the 2021 season in the books, we can take a look at the upcoming free agent class to predict which players might wind up receiving qualifying offer this winter.

Locks

This group is fairly straightforward, as there’s very little chance any of these players would accept a qualifying offer. Correa, Seager and Freeman all have MVP-caliber upside and are locks to pull in long-term deals this winter. Semien didn’t receive a QO from the A’s after a down year in 2020, took a pillow contract with the Jays for almost the value of the QO ($18MM), and has essentially replicated his 2019 form that earned him a third place finish in AL MVP voting. He should find a big multi-year deal this time around.

Story is having a bit of a down year, but there’s no doubt the Rockies will make him a qualifying offer after not trading him at the deadline. Nick Groke of the Athletic wrote this week that Colorado hasn’t given up hope of convincing him to sign a long-term extension, but that seems unlikely given Story’s own bewilderment he wasn’t moved to a contender this summer. Whether Story is willing to return to Denver or not, he’ll receive a QO.

Kershaw, Ray and Rodón will be among the top pitchers on the market. Kershaw has spent the past couple months on the injured list due to forearm soreness, but he’s expected back in September and is in the midst of another fantastic season. So long as he’s healthy, he’s a lock for a QO. Ray and Rodón both had to settle for one-year deals after poor 2020 seasons, but they’ve each been among the best pitchers in the American League this year.

Likely

Over the past two seasons, Taylor has somewhat quietly been one of the game’s top 25 qualified hitters by measure of wRC+ and he’s versatile enough to cover any non-catcher position on the diamond. He’s not a true everyday player at any one spot and he’s making contact at a career-worst rate this season, so he falls just short of being an absolute lock for a QO. But the Dodgers would be as willing as any team to shoulder a significant one-year salary were Taylor to accept, and his body of work should be sufficient to warrant a multi-year deal regardless.

The Mets’ players in this group are two of the more interesting free agents in the class. Conforto entered the season looking like a lock for a QO and seemingly having a chance at landing nine figures with a strong platform year. He missed a month with injury, though, and hasn’t made anywhere near his typical level of impact at the plate. He’s shown some life over the past few weeks, and between his track record and age (28), Conforto still seems a good bet to land a long-term deal.

Syndergaard was a top-of-the-rotation starter at his peak, but he hasn’t pitched since 2019 because of Tommy John surgery. He’s eyeing a September return — likely in relief, given his dwindling time to build up arm strength — and his late-season form will obviously be critical to his market. The Mets should run one of the higher payrolls in the league, and Syndergaard has the upside to be an ace if healthy, so New York still seems more likely than not to make the offer.

Similarly, Verlander has essentially missed two full seasons because of his own Tommy John procedure. That’s a scary development for a pitcher who’ll be 39 on Opening Day 2022, but he was still every bit an ace when we last saw him in 2018-19. The Astros are a win-now club that runs high payrolls, so Verlander accepting a QO wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. If he declines and signs elsewhere, Houston would recoup some much-needed draft compensation after losing their past two first-round picks as punishment for the sign-stealing scandal.

Colorado reportedly showed even less interest in trading Gray than they did with Story at the deadline. There’s apparently mutual interest about working out a multi-year extension, and the QO could serve as a temporary measure to keep Gray in Denver while the Rockies and Gray’s representatives work on a long-term deal.

Rodríguez has bounced back to take the ball every fifth day this year after a scary bout with myocarditis cost him all of 2020. His ERA’s pushing 5.00, but his peripherals are far better than that bottom line run prevention and the southpaw has an established track record of mid-rotation production.

The Mariners are facing a difficult decision regarding Kikuchi, as MLBTR’s Steve Adams explored last month. Seattle must decide whether to exercise a package deal of four successive club options at $16.5MM apiece (essentially a four-year, $66MM extension) this winter. If the Mariners don’t exercise their four-year option, Kikuchi has a $13MM player option to return to Seattle for 2022. If both parties decline their ends, the 30-year-old would hit free agency this offseason, although the M’s could then tag Kikuchi with a qualifying offer.

Given that Kikuchi will only be a free agent if he passes on a $13MM player option, the Mariners would likely make him a QO worth a few million dollars more if it comes to that — either with the expectation he’ll decline in search of a longer-term deal, or with the hope he accepts and Seattle can keep him in the fold next season without committing themselves to the additional three years of guaranteed money.

Possible

The Giants have plenty of payroll space this offseason and seem likely to try to keep most of this season’s core together. Belt has been one of the sport’s most productive offensive players on a rate basis over the past two years. But he’s also 33 years old, has a long injury history and is striking out at the highest rate of his career.

San Francisco bought low on DeSclafani over the winter after he had a tough 2020 season with the Reds. He’s bounced back to post a very strong 3.26 ERA, although his peripherals are closer to average and he’s benefitted from opponents’ .257 batting average on balls in play. The Giants will likely see 4/5 of their starting rotation hit free agency this winter, so they could be eager to bring DeSclafani back, even if that comes via a lofty 2022 salary.

Morton has had another productive season in his first year as a Brave, but his previous two teams (the Astros in 2018 and the Rays in 2020) let him reach free agency without making a qualifying offer despite his consistently strong track record. That’s presumably due to concerns about his past injury history and age. He’ll turn 38 this winter and might check his potential earning power by limiting himself to teams in the Southeastern part of the country — as he reportedly did last offseason. That could inspire the Braves to pass on a QO, but Morton continually reels off above-average performances, and this is an Atlanta front office that has been eager to dole out hefty single-year salaries for key veteran upgrades in recent years.

Iglesias looks like the top impending free agent reliever (assuming the White Sox exercise their option over Craig Kimbrel). He’s sporting an ERA under 3.00 for the fifth time in his six seasons since moving to the bullpen, and he’s never had a single-season SIERA above 3.55. Home runs have been an issue, but Iglesias gets above-average results year in and year out and has some of the best strikeout and walk numbers in the game in 2021.

Long Shots

The Giants hold a $22MM club option (with a $3MM buyout) over Posey’s services for next season. If the front office is willing to commit him a significant salary, they’ll just exercise the option rather than going the QO route. Indeed, they’re reportedly planning to do exactly that (or to potentially pursue a multi-year extension with the franchise icon). Either way, there’s no real reason to involve the qualifying offer here.

Canha would be a very plausible qualifying offer candidate on many teams. He’s been a well above-average hitter and overall performer three years running and is generally one of the game’s more underrated players. The A’s, though, didn’t make a QO to either of Semien or Liam Hendriks last season. Canha’s a Bay Area native, and his age (33 in February) will cap the length of offers he receives from other clubs. Given that, it’s not hard to envision him accepting a QO if offered. The A’s, who perennially run low payrolls and will have a loaded class of arbitration-eligible players this winter, don’t seem likely to take that risk.

Wainwright has had a fantastic 2021 season, and the Cardinals figure to be motivated to keep the franchise icon in St. Louis in some capacity. But that also looked to be true after his strong 2020 campaign, and Wainwright only wound up landing a one-year, $8MM deal. He’d be well-deserved in demanding a raise over that sum to return next season, but it remains to be seen if the Cardinals would be willing to chance more than doubling his salary  — particularly if they feel Wainwright’s motivated to remain in St. Louis rather than pursue the highest possible offers in free agency.

Kluber signed an $11MM deal with the Yankees last offseason after back-to-back seasons wrecked by injury. He pitched well through ten starts but has been out since late May with a shoulder strain. Kluber’s nearing a return to action, but his missing nearly three months only adds to prior concerns about his ability to handle a significant workload at this stage of his career.

Kim, García and Wood are all having strong 2021 seasons and could plausibly land solid multi-year deals this winter. Each has enough question marks that their teams don’t seem especially likely to offer a salary in the range of the qualifying offer, though. Kim doesn’t miss many bats; García has had extreme highs and lows throughout his career; Wood has a checkered injury history. García’s contract contains a $12MM club option that vests into a mutual option if he reaches 492 plate appearances this season. If that option doesn’t vest, the Brewers would obviously have no incentive to decline the option only to make a qualifying offer at a higher price point.

Opt-Out Clauses

Each of Arenado (six years, $179MM), Castellanos (two years, $34MM) and Martinez (one year, $19.35MM) has significant guaranteed money remaining on their contracts but can opt out of those deals this winter. Arenado and Castellanos would be locks to reject qualifying offers if they trigger their opt-out provisions, since they’d be foregoing bigger guarantees to test the market.

Martinez’s player option is of similar enough value to the projected value of the qualifying offer that he could plausibly trigger the opt-out but then accept a QO. Even if that proved to be the case, the Red Sox would probably be happy to keep him in the middle of the lineup for another season.

Ineligible

Cardinals Place Adam Wainwright, Andrew Miller On IL; Activate Harrison Bader

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The Cardinals are placing right-hander Adam Wainwright on the COVID-19 injured list, Katie Woo of The Athletic tweets. The team’s shelving Wainwright as a precautionary move after one of his family members tested positive for the virus, per Woo. In other moves, the Cardinals have activated outfielder Harrison Bader, placed left-hander Andrew Miller on the 10-day IL with a right foot blister, and recalled righty Kodi Whitley, according to Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat.

Wainwright will miss his scheduled start Sunday in Pittsburgh as a result of this IL placement. However, the Cardinals are hopeful the 39-year-old will take the ball against the Mets on Monday.

Wainwright, a career-long Cardinal whom they re-signed to a one-year, $8MM guarantee in free agency, has given the club quality production yet again this season. While Wainwright didn’t come out of the gate particularly well, he has turned it around over his two most recent starts, including a complete game, two-run effort against the Phillies on Monday. Through five starts and 28 2/3 innings, Wainwright has put up a 4.08 ERA (with a far better 3.28 SIERA) and logged above-average strikeout and walk percentages of 26.4 and 5.0, respectively.

Bader is finally set to make his 2021 debut after missing the first several weeks of the season with a forearm injury. He earned the lion’s share of starts for the Cardinals in center last year and batted .226/.336/.443 with four homers 125 plate appearances. Dylan Carlson has handled the position this season, but he’s capable of lining up at both corner outfield spots. Carlson has gotten off to an excellent start, while utilityman Tommy Edman and Tyler O’Neill have put up decent production in the Cards’ outfield, and Justin Williams has struggled mightily.

Miller, once an elite reliever, has seen his career take a negative turn since he signed a two-year, $25MM guarantee with the Cardinals heading into 2019. Miller’s earning $12MM this year on a club option that vested, but his performance hasn’t matched his salary. He yielded two earned runs on two hits in a third of an inning in a win over the Phillies on Thursday, thereby raising his ERA to 8.59 over 7 1/3 innings. Miller has given up 12 hits, including two homers, and walked four in the early going.

Cardinals Re-Sign Adam Wainwright

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Jan. 29: The Cardinals have announced Wainwright’s return. There’s a full no-trade clause and up to $775K in award bonuses, Heyman tweets.

Jan. 28: The Cardinals are bringing back franchise icon Adam Wainwright on what’s “believed to be” a one-year deal worth $8MM, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets. Wainwright’s contract includes incentives, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The right-hander is a client of Aegis Sports Management.

This is the first true sign of life this offseason from the Cardinals, who have seen Wainwright, catcher Yadier Molina and second baseman Kolten Wong (after a declined option) hit free agency but haven’t done anything to upgrade their roster. Nevertheless, it’s no surprise the Cardinals are keeping Wainwright, a longtime member of the organization whom they’ve been connected to throughout the winter.

A Cardinal since his major league debut in 20o5, Wainwright is one of the most accomplished pitchers in their storied history. The three-time All-Star may not be the ace he was earlier during his time in the majors, but he remains a quality starter at this late stage of his career. As a 39-year-old in 2020, Wainwright turned in 65 2/3 innings over just 10 starts and recorded a 3.15 ERA/4.39 SIERA with a 20.6 percent strikeout rate and an above-average 5.7 percent walk rate. Among Cardinals starters, Wainwright easily ranked first in innings, outdoing Jack Flaherty by almost 25 full frames, and checked in behind Dakota Hudson and Kwang Hyun Kim in ERA.

Because he underwent Tommy John surgery in September, Hudson won’t be available for the Cardinals in 2021. That only increases Wainwright’s importance for the club, which will count on him, Flaherty and Kim to perform well near the top of their starting staff. Carlos Martinez and Miles Mikolas, who missed all of last season after undergoing right flexor tendon surgery, look as if they’ll fill out the Cardinals’ rotation at the beginning of the campaign. It doesn’t appear to be the safest group, but Wainwright should be one of its stabilizing forces.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Latest On Cardinals’ Free Agents

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At the outset of the offseason, it seemed plausible to imagine a world in which Adam Wainwright, Yadier Molina, and Kolten Wong would return to the team without ever really testing free agency. Instead, Wainwright and Molina eschewed quick reunion deals in favor of market exploration and the club declined its option over Wong.

As Spring Training closes in, the fates of all three players remain unknown. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch updates the market situation of these St. Louis stalwarts.

Wainwright is unsurprisingly drawing a good amount of interest, it seems. Goold says that the veteran righty is sitting on multiple offers, including one from the upstart Padres. Details remain unknown — including how the San Diego team would propose to fit him in a loaded rotation mix. Neither is it clear how strongly Wainwright is considering alternative destinations at this point.

The Cards are still pursuing both Wainwright and Molina, per Goold, having extended “updated offers” to each player. There’s no further word as to whether the longtime teammates are coordinating in a bid to land in the same place, as they’ve discussed previously.

It’s quite a different situation with respect to Wong, who enjoyed a quality run with the Cardinals but doesn’t have quite the organizational standing of the aforementioned legends. The second bagger has reportedly had contact with his former employer, but it’s far from clear that they’re headed for a reunion. Goold writes that the club has “not actively pursued” a new deal with Wong.

The Cards remain in a somewhat odd situation on the heels of a good-but-not-great season. The org hasn’t had a losing season since 2007, has quite a bit of talent on hand, and has a tantalizing opportunity to capitalize on an NL Central division that may be the game’s weakest. At the moment, though, the club is taking an outwardly passive approach to the offseason.

The above-linked article contains further exploration of the situations. It also features updates on the winter ball action of Molina and key righty Carlos Martinez.

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