Are the Cardinals Doing Right by Adam Wainwright?

(Photo by Chris Lee/St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

By Devin Pangaro | @devinpangaro

The defending World Series champion St.Louis Cardinals have faced an uphill climb in their quest to return to the post season in 2012. Staff ace Chris Carpenter has missed the entire season due to nerve-related shoulder problems that led to surgery, and Adam Wainwright has dealt with bouts of inconsistency in his return from Tommy John surgery.

 

With the season in the midst of its final month, St. Louis continues to lean heavily on the thirty-one year old right hander and have thus far contradicted a preseason claim by general manager John Mozeliak that the Cardinals would limit Wainwright to around 150-175 innings pitched as precaution. The dilemma over what's best for the Cardinals and what's best for Wainwright career remains in play.

The question that remains:  Why haven't the St. Louis Cardinals enforced an innings limit on their recovering ace?

For Wainwright the competitor, the innings regulation simply would not stand. From the first day of spring training, he was outspoken about his rejection to the plan and was very honest with the media.

"I refuse to put a limit on my innings." as reported by ESPN's Jayson Stark, "It doesn’t help me. I don’t think it does anybody any good, to be honest with you. I don’t know. I'm just going to try to minimize the tough innings, and make them yank me out of the game. What happens if I throw 185-190 innings going into September? We'll just have to wait and see. I think it depends on how everything's going.”

Fast forward six months, and Wainwright has fallen just a little short of his prognostication throwing 168.2 innings as the calendar turned to September, and still there has been no whispers of shutting him down.

While his teammates would never accuse him of rushing himself back from surgery too soon, 2012 has proven to be quite the up and down season for the hurler. Showing the inconsistency common in Tommy John surgery survivors, Wainwright fought through periods of difficulty in April, May, and June before steadying himself over the last two months. Upon further analyzing, courtesy of Fangraphs, Wainwright has relied much more on his cut fastball than years past, usually at the expense of his sinker which has experienced a slight drop in velocity. However, he has not shied away from using the knee-buckling, devastating curveball of Carlos Beltran's nightmares when needed. Although 13-11 with 3.90 ERA may be below the standards of Wainwright enthusiasts and fantasy owners everywhere, his FIP and XFIP at 2.96 and 3.08 are not far behind the numbers of his stellar pre-surgery 2010 season where he won 20 games.

Furthermore, his 2012 K/9 ratio of 8.48 and BB/9 ratio of 2.19 are in line with his 2010 totals of 8.32 K/9 and 2.19 BB/9, showing that his command has remained solid post injury. However, his BABIP has ballooned by nearly 0.50 points, thanks largely to a handful of starts where he was knocked around by the Nationals, Mets, Braves, Pirates, and Cubs.

For the "what have you done for me lately?" crowd, Wainwright has been excellent. Despite pitching his worst game of the year on the final day in August (a game in which he exited after 2 2/3 innings against Washington after being shellacked for nine hits and six earned runs), he still put together his best month of the season, finishing at 5-1 with 2.75 ERA and tossing a complete game shutout against Houston on the 21st. His second half string of successful starts leads one to believe that his last start in August was more of an aberration, and hopefully not a harbinger of a September meltdown.

Despite missing Chris Carpenter, Wainwright has been assisted by a strong Cardinal rotation led by Kyle Lohse and the unproven Lance Lynn helping to take some weight off his shoulders. With the Cardinals in contention and leading the second Wild Card in a close race, now is not the time to shutdown Wainwright. Although he won't replicate his 20 win season of 2010, he has only grown stronger and more effective as the season has gone on. Feared, respected, and very much a symbol of the Cardinals postseason success of 2006, he has the distinction of being the man on the mound to clinch the NLDS, NLCS, and the World Championship.

Wainwright is an integral part of the organization, a proven winner and, as specialized statistics prove, not far removed from his dominant self. If the Cardinals hope to defend their title, Wainwright must pitch in September without being restricted by an innings limit. There's really no other way around it. Perhaps the question is not why haven't the Cardinals put an innings limit on Adam Wainwright? Rather, the question should be... how could they?

Devin Pangaro is a Staff Writer for FanSided.com's Swingin' A's Blog and Columnist at Big Leagues Monthly Magazine.