Crystal Ball: Adam Wainwright

by John Sickels on Feb 24, 2026 2:56 PM EST in News Comment 7 comments

Disclaimer: The Crystal Ball is an "educated opinion"...not to be taken TOO seriously and mostly for fun. I do put quite a bit of work into them, looking at similar players and trying to figure out how the guy in question might develop. Is there a fancy computer program? No. Do I just slop numbers on the page? No. It is less than a projection/prediction but more than just guesswork.

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Man, 2009

Is going to be one crazy outlier. I think this is way too pessimistic, his career is going to be better than this.

Probably shorter too.

by future on Feb 24, 2026 3:09 PM EST reply actions

Whoa

Way optimistic. You're projecting him to have better numbers in 2009 than Chris Carpenter, Brandon Webb, Carlos Zambrano, Roy Halladay, Mike Mussina, Chien-Ming Wang, and Roy Oswalt did last year. I think it'd be very shocking if he actually did that good in 2009.

by gordonroyals2008 on Feb 24, 2026 4:39 PM EST reply actions

re:

Which 2009 are you talking about? The first one or the second one?

by Boxkutter on Feb 24, 2026 5:04 PM EST up reply actions

Lets Hope

Let's hope that John is a little off with this projection in the short term. For the Cards to go any where I believe they will need a few more wins from Wainwright.

http://whiteyball.wordpress.com

Whats that have to got to do with anything?

by whiteyball on Feb 24, 2026 4:58 PM EST reply actions

Bold prediction:

Wainwright will never have a year close to the projected 2009.

by templeUsox on Feb 24, 2026 7:22 PM EST reply actions

i don't know

It's not unreasonable that a pitcher with the K and BB numbers that John suggest and Wainwright's pedigree will have such a hit-lucky year. I don't know if it will be as dramatic as John's 2009 suggests, but I certainly don't think it's a bad call on a potential peak year in Wainwright's career.

by limozeen on Feb 24, 2026 8:47 PM EST reply actions

What am I not understanding here...

K/9

6.91 (3.80 ERA)
6.17 (2.90)
6.86 (3.82)

BB/9

2.17
1.54
2.18

HR/9:

The peripherals are almost equal (drop in Ks cancels drop in BBs). So basically, this is predicting that Wainwright will get insanely lucky in 2009...which is totally unpredictable.

BTW, only one pitcher in the last 3 seasons has pitched over 245 innings. Forecasting a pitcher who has never thrown 200+ innings in a season is, to put it nicely, very bold.

Some people bring the Bible to college...we bring Moneyball.

by uga007 on Feb 25, 2026 5:23 AM EST reply actions

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