Wainwright’s Injury: Key to Signing Pujols?
Adam Wainwright’s date with Tommy John surgery certainly hurts the Cardinals’ chances for success in 2011. But there could be an unexpected benefit: signing Albert Pujols.
Two days ago, Wainwright’s contract ranked among the very best in baseball. The Cardinals bought out seasons three through six of his major league career for just $15 million. Though he will now miss all of that fourth season, St. Louis has already booked a gigantic profit. According to FanGraphs’ win valuations, the team’s co-ace has delivered roughly $60 million in value over the past three seasons — four times what the Cards have paid him.
As Dave Cameron wrote when ranking Wainwright as #18 on his annual Trade Value list:
Anyone who wasn’t sure how good Wainwright’s curve was learned during Tuesday’s All-Star Game. His curveball is probably the best in the game, and his fastball, slider, and change-up aren’t bad either. He throws strikes, gets groundballs, and misses bats. There are really no flaws in his game. The Cardinals control him through 2013 at a grand total of $27 million, and the last two years of the deal are team options, limiting the liability if something goes wrong and he ends up hurt. Overall, the combination of excellence, low cost, and minimal risk adds up to a highly valued asset.
Those team options for 2012 and 2013 could prove crucial in finding the last few dollars to sign the team’s franchise player to the biggest contract in major league history.
Wainwright’s $9 million salary in 2012 and $12 million salary in 2013 became conditionally guaranteed when the right-hander finished in the top five of last season’s Cy Young voting. The only stipulation that would make those options not vest was if he finished 2011 on the disabled list. That year-end DL status is now assured.
Put yourself in GM John Mozeliak’s shoes, and you figure the Cardinals spent this winter assuming Wainwright’s 2012 and 2013 salaries were guaranteed. Here was a pitcher who’d topped 200 innings in three of the past four seasons. A catastrophic injury appeared unlikely. Now that it has happened, though, Mozeliak could get creative, if the spirit moved him.
Before we get to Pujols, let’s figure out if picking up Wainwright’s options is, other conditions aside, a smart move. The compounding factor with his options is that both must be picked up at the same time. That means the Cardinals wouldn’t be betting $9 million for one year; they’d be shelling out $21 million over two years. Roughly speaking, that means Wainwright would need to deliver 4 wins over what a replacement player can provide to justify the contract.
While there’s no hard and fast rule for a pitcher’s return after Tommy John surgery, a year or more is typically a safe bet. To get back to full strength, a year and a half or more is a more realistic timetable. If Wainwright returns in the summer of 2012, at less than full strength, it would be tough to project him for more one win next season…maybe two, in an optimistic scenario.
Assuming he has surgery in the next few weeks, he’d be about two years removed from TJ by Opening Day 2013. That could pave the way for a vintage Wainwright performance — he averaged nearly 6 wins per year in the 2009 and 2010 seasons.
Compound these projections with some of the dollars thrown at risky-but-talented pitchers like Ben Sheets and Rich Harden in the past couple years, and guaranteeing Wainwright’s options would seem to make sense. If the Cardinals decline his option and try to bid on him next off-season, Wainwright will have a better recent track record, and potentially less injury risk, than Sheets and Harden had at the time they got their money. The Cardinals could thus face a scenario where they would owe Wainwright more money in 2012 than if they’d just picked the options up.
Pujols is the gigantic wild card. If the Cardinals truly believe they can’t find enough money to meet his demands given their current and projected financial situation, finding another $21 million could provide those final few dollars needed to lock up the best player of this generation.
Wainwright could well offer ample surplus value at $21 million over two years. But if the Cardinals face an either/or situation on a post-TJ Wainwright vs. keeping a player who could go down as one of the 10 best in the game’s history…it’d be tough to bring Wainwright back.
One piece of advice for the Cardinals: If you want to invest Wainwright’s money in Pujols, get the big guy locked up first. Losing a potential 2013 Cy Young candidate and the guy who might one day surpass Stan Musial would mark one of the darkest moments in team history.
Jonah Keri is the author of The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First -- now a National Bestseller! Follow Jonah on Twitter @JonahKeri, and check out his awesome podcast.
So… I was reading Hayhurst’s book “Bullpen Gospels” (which is amazingly good, best book I’ve read in a while), and he tells an anecdote about a guy who had TJ surgery. A week (or something) after going under the knife he walks into the doctor’s office in a sling. He apparently has done all of his homework and knows exactly what’s going on in his elbow. He asks the doctor, “Is there any medical reason why I can’t pitch right now?” and the doctor says “Well… no not really. Just pain”. The guy says, fcuk it, and straightens his arm out violently, passes out because of the pain and slams to the floor. Pretty hilarious, I didn’t do the story justice, but Hayhurst sets it up beautifully. He’s a great writer.
Basically, just curious if Hayhurst was bending the truth. Is pain really the only reason guys can’t come back from TJ sooner?
And what’s best is when he comes to, he has much greater range of motion. Sounds like the beginning stages of a new rehab methodology.
The rehabilitation process usually begins two weeks after surgery. By then the incisions and new ligament have healed sufficiently. So I assume that’s what the story (however apocryphal it may be) is referring to.
Pain isn’t the reason it takes so long to come back from TJ surgery. Orthopedic surgeons have developed a rehabilitation protocol with the goal that the pitcher resume pitching competitively in 12 months following surgery. My understanding is it takes that long for the pitcher to build up the strength, endurance, and range of motion necessary to pitch competitively again. It also takes a long time for the transplanted tendon to ligamentize, which basically means the tendon has to learn how to act like a ligament before it’s ready to withstand the rigors of pitching competitively.
I look at Sheets / Harden as cautionary tales. Nobody is viewing those as great signings today. If anything those contracts should scare potential bidders rather than being used as a benchmark. A better comparable would be this years signing of Webb at $3m. Granted the injuries aren’t the same but I think Webb shows a general market correction that recognizes elbow/shoulder injuries can be rough. This is especially true in the first year of recovery.
If Wainwright can’t pitch again until some time next year I have a hard time seeing a team shell out $9m or more for him. If his recovery is less than stellar than getting a 2nd year at $12m will be a challenge.
For the right team (see list of teams with endless payrolls) Wainwright makes a ton of sense. The Yankees could afford to drop $25m on him for 2 years without batting an eye. If he bombs then oh well. Clubs like the Cards don’t have that luxury.
So sad. Wainwright seems like a great guy and is one heck of a pitcher. The Cards are going to be hurt tremendously by this unfortunate stroke of bad luck.
Webb’s a totally different case. He missed two seasons, not one, and couldn’t get his fastball past 83 in workouts for teams, so most teams decided that he’s just permanently broken. TJ surgery has a much better recovery rate than shoulder surgery as well. Webb is the floor of what Wainwright could get, and that’s only if his recovery goes really poorly.
How long did it take Liriano to become that valuable again?
Has anyone suggested the Cardinals cannot afford both Pujols and Wainwright?
It’s pretty presumptuous at this point to call Wainwright a 2013 Cy Young candidate. I’m not predicting gloom and doom, but TJ surgery does not have a 100% success rate.
The comparison to Sheets and Harden as justification for guaranteeing Wainwright’s options is flat silly. Everybody knew that the Sheets contract was stupid, but at least it was for only one year. And nobody has given Harden anything like that kind of money.
There is no benefit in losing a star player with a team friendly contract. None.
If they decide to use the Wainright money to sign Pujols, they are looking at having a pretty bad team. Seriously. Is anyone penciling them in for the playoffs now that Wainright is hurt? No. So what makes anyone think they’ll contend in the future without him?
In this particular type of analysis, you have to include the fact that if the options are not picked up, it’s 100% guaranteed that Wainwright will not sign with StL when he’s healthy, while picking them greatly increases the chances that he will sign extension or a new deal with them, with positive feelings toward the team that paid for his rehab.
This article makes very little sense. Since his options had value (i.e. he was underpaid), couldn’t he have been signed and then traded for cheaper prospects that would provide later value and contract flexibility? The whole premise of this makes no sense to me. I fail to see a situation where losing a transferable, net-positive asset ever helps you financially.
The premise of this is kind of like if you owned a series of gas stations and one of them blew up, providing you with half its value through insurance money. You then say “Geez, that money could really make a difference for buying an office park!” But in reality, you could SELL the gas station for full value and then have even more money. The gas station blowing up in no way helped your chances buying the office park, in fact, it hurt it.
If the Wainwright options aren’t picked up doesn’t he go to arbitration? Ithought he only had 4 years of service time
Probably, but I can’t see him getting very much after TJ surgery.
couldnt the Cards always pick up his option and then trade him for whatever prosopects they can get?
Im sure there will be a market for him even if hes not ready to pitch at the start of the ’12 season, and at least they will get something for him (that wont cost much at all in terms of salary) rather than let him walk and get nothing
Perhaps the Yankees would be interested in paying his salary in 2012-13 in exchange for prospects – they (will likely still) need the starting pitching and can afford to gamble the $21M.
He’ll have the full 6 years of service time after this season, so FA as opposed to arb-eligible.
why not trade away carpenter’s 15mil and keep wainwright at 9mil? even if he is not at 100%, he will be worth just as much as carpenter for a little over half the price. how can it make sense to let wainwright go and keep carpenter?
The idea that the Cardinals “booked a profit” on Wainwright seems to be an abuse of WAR valuations. Those valuations are based on free agent dollars, an entirely different market than pre-free agent dollars. Like any team, the Cardinals expect to pay far less for a win during those years. In fact, in order to have a payroll of a 100 million, they are required to spend less for those wins … My apologies for nitpicking, but when you buy a pair of shoes that ordinarily cost $150 for $50 (no matter what my girlfriend says), you didn’t just make a $100 profit, you just paid $50 for a nice pair of shoes.
Sure this could mean they’ll have more money to sign AP, but does he want to come back to a wain-less cards team? the man wants money sure, but he also wants to win. I don’t know, tough spot cards.
Thing is Pujols wants 8-9 years, Wainrights option is for 2 years. You still have to replace Wainrights 5 wins if you want to compete for the playoffs. If signing Pujols to 8-9 years means you can not sign a pitcher to get you these W’s, then St Louis would be doing just what Hicks did with A-Rod, and dooming Cards fans to a decade of mediocrity despite having Pujols .
Seems at least some revenue sharing dollars should go into a pool which low revenue teams can use to sign franchise players such as Pujols (limit 1 player per team). That’s one of the sad things about baseball today, players tend not to play their careers with 1 team, even if they would like to.
At the very least, the revenue sharing dollars that go to low-payroll teams should be required to be actually spent on payroll and not go into the owner’s pockets, a la Jeffery Loria. It’s a little hard to feel sympathy for low-revenue teams when some of them pull stunts like that.
“It’s a little hard to feel sympathy for low revenue teams that pocket revenue sharing dollars as profit. Full stop.”
That’s better. Not sure anyone outside MLB can definitely know how many owners are taking out disproportionate amounts of revenue sharing $$$ as dividends rather than investing it in baseball operations.
Wainwright should be picked up. He has too much potential value even with a modest 2013 he could get at least 5 wins. I don’t really see an issue except getting the feel back which may take most of 2012. I se ehim coming back strong in 2013. THe options are still bargains considering the caliber of pitcher he is.
They have to pay him for 2012 & 2013 as;
1) TJ almost always nets a faster, more durable pitcher
2) They are accused of taking advantage (WAR wise) of AP, in not taking AW 2-year options they will be penny-wise, pound foolish.
3) You think AP would really question their busines model with not keeping a top 10 MLB pitcher.
4) He should be ready by April-May…throw below average for a few months and end 2012 decently, but is likely to be a beast in 2013. Lee, CC, & the other big guns are making 20M$ plus, Aw at 12M$ is an extreme bargain.
5) In letting him go, they will have no chance to get him at a discount. He will have moved on and St Louis would be out of the equation & not have anything to show for it.