Kyle McClellan's sit down with Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright, which debuted here on KMOX.com this week, definitely has me appreciating what we've seen from these two franchise greats over the years. It says a lot when you're a franchise with as much history as the Cardinals and you're mentioned alongside some of the greats that have ever worn the Birds on a Bat ... and these two guys definitely deserve that recognition.
Related
Later in the week I'll see how Yadi stacks up with the greatest Cardinals catchers of all-time but for today I want to focus on where Waino fits in amongst the greatest Cardinals pitchers of all-time.
Related
First off, let's just be clear that there is no dispute about who the best Cardinals pitcher of all-time is. It's Bob Gibson and it's not close. He is the franchise's all-time leader in wins, innings pitched, strikeouts, games started, complete games and shutouts. Gibby is also the Cardinals' all-time leader in pitcher WAR. So yeah, he's #1 and there's no further discussion necessary there.
So Waino isn't the best pitcher in franchise history...but where does he fall? Is in the Top 5? Just outside of that?
Let's take a quick look...
There are a couple of Hall of Famers we have to consider first in this conversation about who comes next after Gibby. Dizzy Dean and Jesse Haines are both in Cooperstown and they rank right near the top in franchise history in key categories.
Dean ranks 2nd in Cardinals history in pitcher WAR, he's 7th all-time in wins, 10th all-time in innings pitched, 3rd all-time in strikeouts, 10th all-time in complete games and tied for 5th all-time in shutouts (with Haines). Pretty good stuff, no?
Haines is 5th in Cardinals history in pitcher WAR, he's 2nd all-time in wins, 2nd all-time in innings pitched, 7th all-time in strikeouts, 2nd all-time in complete games and tied for 5th all-time in shutouts (with Dean). Again, pretty strong.
Related
So, my Top 3 would go like this:
1. Gibson
2. Haines
3. Dean
You can flip Dean and Haines if you like, no worries. I won't argue.
To round out the Top 5 let's put a small group together to sort through. I think we have to discuss Harry Brecheen, Bob Forsch, John Tudor and Waino. I'd love to add Chris Carpenter into the conversation but I think he's just outside this group. Certainly in the Cardinals' Top 10 (in my opinion) but there isn't as much to work with because of the time he missed in 2007 and 2008. If he had been healthy in those years I think Carp would be in the conversation for one of the spots in the Top 5. He just misses out.
Let's start with Brecheen. He ranks 3rd in Cardinals' history in pitcher WAR, he's 8th all-time in wins, 9th all-time in innings pitched and 4th all-time in shutouts. His ERA was 33% better than league average during his career (1940-1953), which is strong. His fielding independent ERA was a little higher than his ERA (3.26 to 2.92) but not enough to change how we look at him.
Forsch is 4th in Cardinals history in wins, 3rd in innings pitched, 5th in strikeouts, 2nd in games started, and 9th in shutouts. Forsch's ERA was about league average (ERA+ 98) for his career, which is a slight knock against him for the purposes of this discussion. His fielding independent ERA was about the same as his actual ERA (3.84 to 3.76) so there's nothing to worry about there.
Tudor was only with the Cardinals for 5 seasons, so he doesn't crack the Top 10 in any of the counting categories like innings, wins, etc. He ranks really high when it comes to rate stats, however. Tudor ranks 2nd in Cardinals history in ERA, 3rd in winning percentage, 1st in WHIP, 5th in hits allowed per 9 innings, 10th in fewest walks per 9 innings and first in ERA+. ERA+ measures a pitcher against the league average during a particular time period and Tudor was 46% above league average while pitching for the Cardinals.
Wainwright fits in pretty nicely with this group. He ranks 4th in Cardinals history in pitcher WAR, 3rd all-time in wins, 2nd all-time in strikeouts, 6th all-time in innings pitched, 4th all-time in games started and 3rd all-time in K/BB rate. Waino has been 19% above league average over the course of his career and his ERA (3.38) and FIP (3.41) are almost identical.
Let's be honest here, the only areas where Waino doesn't measure up to the older generations have to do with the way pitchers are used in modern times more than anything else. Complete games and shutouts just aren't regular occurrences in the modern game. Otherwise he stacks up nicely.
For the sake of this piece I'm going to leave Tudor out of the Top 5 because of sample size. Brecheen (12 years), Forsch (15 years) and Wainwright (15 years...so far) just have more time in the organization and I think that has to count here. If you disagree, perfectly fine. This isn't a scientific finding!
I'd rank Brecheen 4th here because of the three left he was the best compared to the league average during his time. For the same reason I'd rank Waino just ahead of Forsch.
So my Top 5 goes like this:
1. Gibson
2. Haines
3. Dean
4. Brecheen
5. Wainwright
Then after that we can bring in Forsch, Tudor, Carpenter and perhaps some others...
So, my totally unscientific findings lead me to this: Adam Wainwright is one of the 5 best starting pitchers in Cardinals' history.
Yeah, that's kind of a big deal.