Adam Wainwright deserves better from the game that has passed him by

Adam Wainwright closed out the 2006 National League Championship Series in the most dramatic fashion and we love him for it. He could have won the Cy Young Award in 2009 and we love him for it. Wainwright could have won the Cy Young in 2013, too, and we love him for it. He’s gregarious, fun-loving, and charitable. We love him for these qualities as well.

There was a time when Wainwright had the skill to go after hitters. He refused to walk anyone. Nowadays he efficiently gives batters like Nick Cafardo intentional untintentional walks because he and Yadier Molina know that the veteran righty doesn’t have what it takes to play with the fire of that tough lefthanded bat and not get burned.

The Wainwright that was is not the Wainwright that is. He is no longer the guy that you want starting a game that the St. Louis Cardinals must win to avoid a sweep at Wrigley Field in 2019. That’s because the Wainwright that closed out postseason games in 2006 and pitched well enough to win a Cy Young no longer exists. Due to injuries and age, he doesn't have the physical skill to be reliable in must-win games.

Ben Godar wrote about how 2019 Wainwright resembles 2009 Pedro Martinez. And the comparison is apt. Watching Wainwright at Wrigley on Sunday was akin to watching Pedro get shelled at Yankee Stadium in the 2009 World Series, a game the Phillies lost en route to losing the World Series. It was difficult to watch Pedro that night because Pedro deserved better than that punctuating performance on a Hall-of-Fame career.

Wainwright deserves better, too. But as Clint Eastwood growled to Gene Hackman at the end of Unforgiven, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” The opposing lineup doesn’t have time for the nostalgia with which Major League Baseball is laced. Today, the rapid evolution of the game has left even less room for nostalgia — at least as far as aging pitchers go.

There’s no disputing Waino’s guts or guile, but they will only get a veteran so far. And nowadays, that distance has been trimmed down. The cat-and-mouse game between hitters and pitchers now takes place at warp speed thanks to the proliferation of instant high-resolution video and Statcast data. It’s far easier for the opposition to learn a wily old veteran’s tricks than it ever was before.

Wainwright still has his curveball. Thank goodness. When it’s working, that glorious curveball is still poetry in motion. Some nights good ol’ Uncle Charlie makes you feel like Wainwright could freeze 2006 Carlos Beltran all over again. But too often the curve is all Wainwright has. And that’s when things get uncomfortable.

It can get ugly watching Wainwright flinging 90ish mph fastballs that are in the vicinity of the spot that Yadi calls for them. And when that happens and Wainwright’s famous curve is all he has, your heart knows what your brain and eyes are telling it:  Wainwright is near the end. He is a pale shadow of his former self. And on too many nights in 2019, Wainwright hurts the Cardinals’ chances at winning.

Wainwright has sprinkled in good performances with the bad. The overall result from this brew is not particularly heartening. The veteran owns a 4.46 ERA (107 ERA-), which okay and perfectly acceptable for a fifth starter. But that’s the rosiest stat Wainwright has to his name.

His 5.10 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP, which is based on strikeouts, walks, homers allowed, and innings pitched) is awful and equates to a 121 FIP-, which means that he has pitched 21 percentage points worse than league average after adjusting for park effects. FIP is more predictive of future ERA than past ERA, so the rest of the season isn’t looking good. One can take a bit of solace from Wainwright’s xFIP, which normalizes a pitcher’s homer rate. The righty’s xFIP of 4.74 works out to a 105 xFIP-, which is as acceptable as his ERA from a backend starter.

With Wainwright’s floaty fastball and hovering cutter, what do you think is most likely? Will the rate of homers allowed be closer to the league average rate of his high velocity peers or will Wainwright’s below average fastball yield dingers at an above average rate? That’s a tough question to ponder against the backdrop of the last 13 years. And it makes me glad that I’m not John Mozeliak or Mike Shildt, who are paid to make roster decisions.