Adam Wainwright Is Having One Of The Worst Final Seasons In MLB History
I know not everyone gets to go out on top, but this is ridiculous. Adam Wainwright has had a tremendous career. And I give the guy a lot of credit. He saw something of a resurgence over the last several seasons. Many people thought he was close to done after some rough season for the Cardinals in 2016 and 2017, but he found his way back. He had some greats start in the postseason in 2019 and pitched legitimately great baseball for the Cardinals from 2020 through 2022. He was no longer the perennial Cy Young contender that he was in the early to mid-2010s, but at 40 years old, he was still pitching some solid baseball. He had the opportunity to go out with Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols last year and chose to return. I would’ve considered doing the same thing. Wainwright last year showed that he is still better than 90% of pitchers in MLB. At age 40, he pitched over 190 innings. Some 30-year-olds can’t do that nowadays. He came back for one more season, hoping to reach 200 wins, and boy or boy, things have gone sideways.
Wainwright has always been someone I considered a pitch-to-contact pitcher. But what happens when that contact results in doubles and home runs instead of outs? You get the kind of season that Adam Wainwright has had in 2023. His season indicates the type of season the Cardinals have had. It seems like everything that could’ve possibly gone wrong this year in St. Louis has. In 15 starts, Adam Wainwright‘s record is 3-7. Even that’s deceiving. The fact that he has three wins is something of a miracle. It shows how meaningless wins can be for a pitcher sometimes. His ERA in wins this season is 5.09. The offense bailed him out in those starts. His ERA on the season is an abysmal 8.78. Last night against a Royals team who hasn’t been able to score against anybody this year, he only lasted one full inning, allowing nine hits and eight earned runs. Every pitcher, even the great ones, knows what it feels like to get rocked. But Wainwright wasn’t getting rocked. He was getting bludgeoned. He’s giving up 15 runs over four innings in his last two starts.
This awful final season doesn't undo what Wainwright has down in his career. He's an all-time great Cardinal. He closed out the World Series as a rookie in 2006. He finished in the top 10 in Cy Young voting five times in his career, including a second-place finish in 2013.  When his inevitable final start comes, he will get a proper send-off and deserves it. Is he a Hall of Famer? No, absolutely not. I've seen some people throw that around, and it's just wrong. He didn't do enough to make it to Cooperstown, but he's had a fantastic career.
That said, whenever people check that baseball reference page, they will be floored by how steep Wainwright's drop-off has been. It wasn't some gradual decline. He went from solid innings eater to disaster seemingly overnight. That he might not even get to 200 wins at this point is legitimately depressing. In typical Wainwright fashion, I'm sure he will keep his head down, stay classy, and take the ball every fifth day. But the guy has been a competitor his whole career, and I'm sure this season has drained him physically and mentally. He will ride off into the sunset soon and go down as a Cardinals Legend, but his final season has been one to forget.