When Adam Wainwright and the Cardinals negotiated a contract extension in 2008 that would overwrite his arbitration years, the righthander saw welcome peace where his agent saw reduced price. Steve Hammond warned his client about the deal, about not sacrificing potential salary for immediate security.
His agent told Wainwright that he should bank on his ability, and Hammond described to him the kind of seasons that could be in his future.
Seasons like this one.
Wainwright (17-6) will start against Milwaukee on Wednesday as the only starting pitcher in the majors with a sub-2.00 ERA. He is the first pitcher since Dwight Gooden in 1985 to have 25 starts and an ERA less than 2.00 through his team's first 113 games, and Wainwright's 1.99 ERA is the lowest for a Cardinal this late in a season since Bob Tewksbury's 1.97 in 1992.
A year after receiving the most first-place votes for the National League Cy Young Award, Wainwright has greeted the increased expectations Chris Carpenter warned him about with the increased success Hammond told him was possible.
Asked Sunday who is the ace of the Cardinals' staff, Carpenter, a Cy Young winner, didn't hesitate to answer: "Adam."
"There's a lot of pressure on him coming into this season, pressure that he has never experienced before, I think," Carpenter said. "That is a whole new kind of distraction and he's dealt with it fabulously. … Look at what he's doing right now. They keep going back to other people as the best pitchers in the league, and I don't think there's anybody better than him. Numbers. Consistency. Professionalism. Put it all together. There isn't anybody better than him right now."
Into his next start, Wainwright rides a streak of 21 consecutive scoreless innings, his second streak of more than 20. He leads the NL in wins and ERA, and he and Philadelphia ace Roy Halladay are the only two who rank in the top five in the pitching "triple crown" jewels: wins, ERA and strikeouts.
He's plunged his ERA to 1.99 by avoiding problematic innings. The most runs he's given up in an inning this season is three, and that's happened only three times. Of the 176 complete innings he's thrown, 151 have been scoreless.
"You can't expect him to do much more than he's doing," Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan said. "He's pitching consistently deep into games, and he's pretty much controlling games. In his own way, he's been a very dominant pitcher."
Last year Wainwright also led the NL in wins, and despite the first-place votes he finished third in the Cy Young voting, downgraded by some voters for a lack of strikeouts or lower rankings in some advanced-placement stats. This season, he's surgically eliminated any equivocations, ranking high no matter the stat du jour. As recognition, a national sports magazine recently wrote about the "Year of the Pitcher" and cited an array of star and rising pitchers. Perhaps in honor of all the zeroes Wainwright has thrown, that is how many times he was mentioned.
"If you can't win (a Cy Young) at 19-8, 2.63 (ERA) because someone was better, then what in the world can you do?" Wainwright asked. "It's not like I'm going to double that this year. I've got to do the same thing, and the vote goes the way the vote goes. … I agree with any of those explanations except the sabermetric stuff. I don't think that allowing a baserunner more an inning or half a baserunner more an inning than someone else dictates whether you should win an award or not. Did the runner score? If he didn't score, then who the heck cares?"
This season, only two NL pitchers have allowed fewer than one baserunner an inning, and Wainwright is one of them.
And when it comes to Wins Above Replacement Player (how many wins the team has because this man is in the lineup rather than a slightly below average player), one of Baseball Prospectus' granddaddy metrics, Wainwright is tops in the majors at 8.0. He is ahead of position players such as Albert Pujols (5.3). Told even the sabermetrics adore him this year, Wainwright laughed.
"Oh, well," he joked. "I agree with sabermetrics then."
Another sabermetric favorite is Value Over Replacement Player (how many fewer runs this player allows than a slightly below average replacement), and Baseball Prospectus has Wainwright tops among pitchers. A look at his contract adds context to the calculator. In the past two seasons, Wainwright has 21 starts of at least seven innings of allowing two or fewer earned runs. Only Seattle's Felix Hernandez has more, 22, and two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum has 20. Both those pitchers got closer to arbitration before landing their current extensions.
As Wainwright makes $4.65 million this season, Lincecum is at $6.5 million on a two-year, $23 million deal. Hernandez is in the first year of a five-year, $78 million deal. He'll make $18.5 million in 2012.
Wainwright could make $9 million that season — if, that is, he's healthy and his two-year option worth a total of $21 million is exercised.
In spring 2008, Wainwright signed an extension worth a guaranteed $15 million and Hammond negotiated for that two-year block option. The Cy Young has a starring role in that clause. If Wainwright finishes in the top five for the award this year or next and is healthy, the option triggers.
"It's a great clause, and it makes the question, 'Will I ever get there?'" Wainwright asked. "I have a chance to get there. At the time, you're talking about Jake Peavy, Roy Oswalt, Brandon Webb, 'Carp,' and in my mind I put those guys on a pedestal. I'm looking up at them. I'm thinking that's the level I need to get to."
On Monday, Wainwright joined most of his teammates at Albert Pujols' charity golf outing. While signing autographs he joked that four years ago, as a rookie, he had a low handicap and no Q-rating. With the higher profile have come enhanced expectations and more responsibility, from fans with pens to, as Carpenter said, "teammates in the clubhouse and the league." Wainwright is comfortable with that.
He described how back in spring 2008, as negotiations were going on, thoughts of the contract would creep into his bullpen sessions, that his mind would 'stray and think about that stuff." That was one reason he decided sign. Though he agreed with Hammond's view of the future, Wainwright believed he isn't wired to go year-to-year. He could pitch beyond his salary, sure, but the security would help him pitch to his ability.
The option, the awards, the attention will follow.
"I can understand how the media gets its darlings," Wainwright said. "I don't throw the hardest in the league. I'm not the flashiest guy in the league. I never will be. But I'm a pretty good pitcher. … And what I know is this: If I continue to go out and make my starts, put in the work between starts, and with 'Carp' and Duncan and Yadier Molina behind the dish, I'm going to be just fine.
"I'll be in the conversation at the end of the year."
