The Cardinals recently extended pitcher Adam Wainwright to a 5-year, $97.5 million deal. Wainwright will finish his previous deal and get paid $12 million to pitch in 2013. Then his new deal begins in 2014. He'll get paid exactly $19.5 million each year from 2014 to 2018.
My first reaction to the deal was understandably positive. Not only do I like Adam Wainwright's ability to throw a baseball, but I expected a $100+ million deal. The deal will have Wainwright pitching with the Cardinals until he's at least 37-years-old.
My next reaction was not really negative so much as I had figured in my head that he wasn't going to be worth the money, strictly from a performance standpoint. I should say that the most likely scenario was that he wouldn't be worth the money. The odds that he performed up to or exceeding the value of his contract was less likely, by a relatively significant margin, than if he pitched below his value.
I fully accept this was done in my head. This post is putting actual, quantitive analysis to test this reaction. Really, this is almost exactly like Yadier Molina's deal except there are two massive differences. The first is that Molina is a catcher, so he doesn't carry the added weight of pitcher injuries with him (and the Cardinals are barren at catcher in the farm). The second is that pitching is largely quantifiable, whereas catcher defense is still an inexact science.
Molina had a year remaining when he signed an extension just like Wainwright. Both players were/are right on the cusp of being worth it/being a clear overpay (I don't think anybody could seriously argue either was a underpay for instance). Both extend players who have been Cardinals their entire career into possibly lifetime contracts.
Then, Molina's 2012 happened, and his contract looked like a steal. Make no mistake - at the time of the deal, the contract was questioned by experts and rightfully so. His 2012 set the projections for the rest of the deal. And that's exactly what will happen with Wainwright. How he performs in 2013 is vital to the rest of the deal.
Explaining FIP
I'll use a short amount of this post to explain fielding independent pitching (FIP). The stat is created to look like ERA, so you know what a good FIP and a bad FIP is. It's important to note that FIP is a good stat to grade the individual performance of a pitcher, not grade the results of the pitcher.
FIP correlates better year-to-year for pitcher's performance than ERA does. It grades a pitcher's strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed (and HBPs). It's very easy to calculate so long as you have a calculator by your side.
(13*HRs)+(3*[BBs+HBPs)-(2*Ks)/IP+constant (Assume it's 3.2 if you don't know)
So Adam Wainwright allowed 15 homers, 52 walks, hit 6 batters, and struck out 184 batters in 198.2 IP. So using a calculator, you get an FIP of:
(13*15)+(3*[52+6])-(2*184)/198.2 + 3.2 = 3.21
His actual FIP was 3.10, so I guess the constant was significantly lower than 3.2 in 2012. Either way, he was expected to get an ERA of 3.10 and instead had an ERA of 3.94 through some combination of luck, bad fielding, unlucky timing, or bad scoring (score something that should be an error as hit thus raising ERA).
If that didn't explain it well enough, watch this short and informative tutorial on FIP - Link (It's actually very good, so I recommend this one minute video anyway)
Also, I'll be using the stat BABIP in this post. For those who are confused what BABIP is - BABIP = batting average on balls in play - It's assumed pitchers can't control it, unless there's sample evidence to contrary - .290-.310 is neutral luck - Anything below, pitcher is getting "lucky," anything above, the pitcher is getting "unlucky" - It could be due to talent or performance, but usually the sample size is small enough to assume the pitcher has no control.
2012
Now that I have explained FIP, since most of the rest of this analysis will be based on that stat, let's continue by looking at his 2012. FIP helps Wainwright's case tremendously so hopefully I won't get any complaints that I'm using this stat. (If you use ERA, you'd have a tough sell convincing anyone he is worth this contract)
The good news is that Wainwright was basically his old self in 2012. It wasn't his best year, but it was almost the exact same as his 2009 season, except with a much lower ERA in '09. I'm usually not one who likes to draw conclusions by splitting the season into the 1st half and the 2nd half, but since he was recovering from Tommy John surgery, it might actually make for some useful analysis. So here are his stats over the whole season, his 1st half, and his 2nd half:
2012: 32 GS, 198.2 IP, 8.34 K/9, 2.36 BB/9, 0.68 HR/9, .315 BABIP, 3.94 ERA, 3.10 FIP, 4.0 WAR
1st half: 17 GS, 102.2 IP, 8.59 K/9, 2.54 BB/9, 0.88 HR/9, .333 BABIP, 4.56 ERA, 3.36 FIP
2nd half: 15 GS, 96 IP, 8.06 K/9, 2.16 BB/9, 0.47 HR/9, .296 BABIP, 3.28 ERA, 2.82 FIP
Well, there's a clear difference here. He pitched slightly more innings per start in the 2nd half. Extrapolate his 6.4 IP/GS, and he pitches 205 innings the entire season. Not a big difference, but it could matter in a close race. His slight decrease in strikeouts is off-set by his decrease in walks, so I'm going to say that didn't change.
He improved on preventing homers in the second by a significant margin and his BABIP also dropped. It's almost impossible to say if he actually improved or his luck simply got better though. Anecdotally, it seems as if part of the reason Wainwright's home run rate was so high early on was because he was missing spots and keeping the ball up. In other words, it was not all luck and partially Wainwright's fault.
Something that is keeping me very, very positive is that it seems that Wainwright followed what would be a typical TJ recovery (I'm guessing the following). He started off slow, got better each month, and in the last month, had his second worst month of the year as his stamina wasn't quite as high as it used to be. This makes sense right? Get better every month and then you're worn down by the end of the year.
Overall, I'm not convinced unfortunately that these stats provide a substantial enough difference for me to change his future projections. I think his 2012 stats provide a fair estimate on which to project the rest of his contract.
2013 Projections
Fangraphs lists four projection systems on its player profiles. There's Steamer, Bill James, zIPS, and the fan-inserted projections. I'm going to throw out the fan-inserted projection, because usually the people who take the time to fill one out are fans of the team the player is on so they are drastically optimistic. They are inherently biased and thus their projections are invalid to a fair projection.
The best way to use a projection is to average out all three. On their own, the projection systems hit and miss, but together they provide the most accurate of any possible projection. It's of course important to note that projections are... projections. But, it's pretty much the only way to rationally analyze a contract. These are based purely on numbers. They don't hold any biases about a particular player (except perhaps favoring a certain stat - which is why we average out all three).
There is one thing I will change about the projections though and this is probably considered a cardinal sin among advanced stat experts. I will change a pitcher's innings pitched projection. Well, actually I don't usually, but I'm going to with Wainwright. Innings pitched just analyzes the past and sees their potential in injury based on their past injuries.
I feel comfortably enough that Wainwright is back from TJ surgery fully to assume he will pitch more than 192 IP. I'm going to place his projected IP at 205 innings, his pace in the 2nd half of 2012. Otherwise, here's the average of the three projection systems for Wainwright's 2013 season:
Projected 2013: 205 IP, 7.89 K/9, 2.37 BB/9, 0.68 HR/9, .304 BABIP, 3.39 ERA, 3.13 FIP, 5.0 WAR
2014-2018
I don't have the necessary tools to try and give the numbers for what Wainwright's 2014-18 numbers will be, but I will use the rule of thumb where a player declines 0.5 each successive year he gets older.
Since Wainwright is currently 31-years-old and will be 32 by the beginning of the contract, it's safe to assume he'll be entering his decline years. A player's prime is considered 28-32 and Wainwright will just be entering his decline years at the beginning of this contract.
I'm going to grade this two ways. Since Wainwright turns 33-years-old in the middle of the contract, I'll do a projection where he achieves a decline starting in 2014 and a projection where he begins declining in 2015. (Though I'm fairly certain that decline in 2014 would be the correct way to go.)
Decline in 2014
2014: 4.5 WAR
2015: 4.0 WAR
2016: 3.5 WAR
2017: 3.0 WAR
2018: 2.5 WAR
Total WAR: 17.5 WAR
Decline in 2015
2014: 5.0 WAR
2015: 4.5 WAR
2016: 4.0 WAR
2017: 3.5 WAR
2018: 3.0 WAR
Total WAR: 20 WAR
(Part of decline takes in injury risk. Some of it is also due to age)
Putting a Value to the Contract
I'm not sure what the value of a win is in the 2012-2013 off-season, but for purposes of simplicity, I'm putting the value at $5.0 million per win. (If I'm wrong, it's higher. I'm making conservative guess so as to not accidentally mis-value contract too highly)
Since Wainwright's 2013 season is not a part of the contract, it will not be valued. You could argue he might have a better season with the weight of a contract off his shoulders, but you could also argue he'd have a better year in a contract year. So overall, I won't value his 2013 at all since it has nothing to do with the extension.
I'm also not assuming inflation so no matter the price, you could assume contracts will rise (more money for a win) and thus Wainwright's deal will look better. But I won't assume this for a fairer analysis.
Decline in '14 - $87.5
Decline in '15 - $100
Keep in mind the former projection is the one you should be going by. I just did the latter for argument's sake. Still, even using the former, this is very pleasing to me. Wainwright is clearly one of those players that should not just be valued by his on-the-field performance.
Wainwright won't raise ticket prices, or bring more people to games, but he will do intangible things that I can't possibly put a value on. He's one of the few players where I would actually accept the intangible argument.
His clubhouse antics (to keep team loose), his leadership, and his winning smile (this is only partially a joke; I mean have you seen his smile?). He is the perfect embodiment of what the Cardinals organization thinks it is. So we're paying roughly $2 million per year for stuff that doesn't include his performance. I can accept that. That's about 0.4 WAR.
What does this mean
So I have valued Wainwright's contract as fairly priced. There is one problem with this. The years. You can't pay pitchers fairly priced deals over long periods of time. They tend to get hurt. Without injury, this is a fair deal.
But teams shouldn't get a pass when they sign a high-profile free agent (essentially what Wainwright was even if he didn't make it to FA) and he gets hurt. Pitchers get hurt. Committing to them for long periods of time is generally not a smart move.
Then there's the fact that the Cardinals are stacked at pitching for the next few years. They have Lance Lynn, Jaime Garcia, and Shelby Miller pitching in 2013 and they will be a Cardinal until 2017. (Unless Cardinals decline club option for Garcia, which could happen). Michael Wacha is close. Trevor Rosenthal will get a chance to be a starter.
The flip side of the coin is that it gives the Cardinals more flexibility in their rotation. Westbrook is almost definitely gone after this year with the Wainwright signing. Remember he had an option for 2014? We can reject Garcia's option if we deem his salary too high and our young prospects are getting too good to ignore.
It also allows us to not rely on prospects, notorious for their high risk/high reward. Miller hasn't played a full season in the MLB yet. While I strongly suspect good things of him, you never know. One of the prospects I mentioned, in all likelihood, will flame out, get injured, or just start sucking. That's kind of how pitching prospects work. Compile as many as you can and just hope some pan out.
Assuming Miller does well, the Cardinals only have one rotation spot left for Wacha, Rosenthal, and I guess Kelly, who you can just put in the bullpen for the rest of his Cardinal life now. On the other side of the coin, we have trade bait to improve a failing position (such as middle infield).
I'm just trying to analyze this from every angle. I've seen the argument that Wainwright is unnecessary due to pitching prospects who can replace him. I don't buy that argument though. Pitching prospects are too unreliable to... well rely on and the flexibility it gives the Cardinals could sustain them through many injuries to the rotation without much of a drop in quality. I think the good parts of blocking prospects essentially levels out the bad parts of blocking prospects.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, Wainwright's deal is a fair one in my eyes. The track record of pitchers with long deals is not encouraging. (Look at Johan Santana for example; he had no injury history before he signed deal)
Take this for what it's worth, but if you look at the overall price of the rotation, it doesn't change at all. Wainwright's salary increases $7.5 million ($12 to $19.5), but the Cardinals ditch Westbrook's $9.75. The $2 million difference is completed with Jaime Garcia's raise. And since the Cardinals are full of prospects, they won't seek any free agents and will be paying league minimum to Westbrook's replacement, who will also probably be better than Westbrook. This somehow makes me feel better about the deal.
(Further down the line, however, Garcia continues to get a raise and Lynn will enter arbitration and get a raise himself - I don't think Lynn will qualify for Super Two and we get him cheap for 2014 too though)
I'm about as neutral on this contract as you could be. However, whenever I get to watch Wainwright pitch (or do anything in the clubhouse), I'm sure I'll be very happy it happened.
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