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ST. LOUIS (AP) — At 37 Mike Scott Jersey , Adam Wainwright remains confident in his ability to still be effective on the mound for the Cardinals.Wainwright made just eight starts in an injury-plagued 2018 season, giving up 12 earned runs on 22 hits in 22 1-3 innings. He still struck out 25 and walked just four, but it was a frustrating season: He had a hamstring injury and started the season on the disabled list. He came back and made three starts. Then he returned to the 60-day DL with a sore right elbow.In his rehab outing before returning in September, Wainwright pitched 17 scoreless innings. His best outing was a two-hit, six-inning scoreless outing against the Los Angeles Dodgers in his next-to-last start.Wainwright showed himself and the Cardinals he could still pitch.“I want to win. There’s still a big part of me that thinks that I’m going to win a Cy Young,” Wainwright said. “So, I mean, even if that’s pitching in middle relief, I’d be the first one to ever do that.”Last October, Wainwright inked a one-year contract worth $2 million plus bonus incentives. That deal followed a five-year, $97.5 million contract that had expired.He will be entering his 15th season with the Cardinals.“The way he pitched in that rehab assignment and the way he pitched in September is what established the fact that he can still pitch in the big leagues,” general manager Michael Girsch said. “It became obvious that he wanted to come back. He had convinced himself that he could do it.”His career in St. Louis has been a good one. He has 148 wins in his 14 seasons. Wainwright is two wins shy of becoming the fifth Cardinal pitcher and first since Bob Forsch to win 150 games.Wainwright was the runner-up for the Cy Young Award in 2010 and 2013. He also finished third twice.He has been a complete player in his tenure with his defense and hitting. Wainwright won Gold Glove awards in 2009 and 2013. In 2017, he captured the Silver Slugger Award as the best hitting pitcher in the National League.But since 2015, Wainwright has battled various ailments. He has been limited to only 68 starts since 2015. Wainwright finished last season 2-4 with a 4.46 ERA in 40 1-3 innings.“You know, if I’m being honest, last year or even the year before just the way my arm was feeling, I might have said I’m going to go out and win 25 games or whatever, but deep down I wasn’t mentally there,” Wainwright said at last month’s fan event before the team headed to Florida for spring training. “It’s one thing to say it, but it’s a whole another thing to believe it. I don’t know, but I’m on a whole different level health-wise this year than I have been in a few years. So, we’ll see what happens.”This spring, Wainwright reports he is healthy.“It’s been unlike any offseason for me since the 2014 offseason,” Wainwright said. “Nothing to repair. No stitches to get out. No other surgeries to have. It’s been fun for me, actually. I was able to train completely normal again. I can throw completely normal. I already long tossed back to 210 feet. I haven’t done that since even I don’t know when.”Wainwright would like to be a starter this season. However, he has not ruled out to return to the bullpen, where he began his career.For starters, the Cardinals have former All-Stars Miles Mikolas, Michel Wacha and Carlos Martinez to lead the rotation. Jack Flaherty pitched well last season as a rookie to earn a spot in the rotation.That leaves one opening for a starter. Besides Wainwright, other contenders for a starting spot are Austin Gomber and John Gant. A wild card is Alex Reyes Alex Bregman Jersey , who is healthy this spring. The hard-throwing right-hander has logged only four major league innings over the last two seasons due to injuries.“I trying not to think of anything that I can’t control,” Wainwright said. “And what I can control is coming in and getting outs. I’m pretty confident in that.”Wainwright wants to make the decision on who makes the rotation a tough one for manager Mike Shildt.“We have spring training for a reason,” Shildt said. “All those guys will come and be told to compete for a starting position and you just go from there.”Wainwright said he also knows this could be his last season in the majors.“I’m going to treat every year from here like it’s my last and go year to year,” Wainwright said. “I’m going to have a great time and maybe a year from now we’re having the same conversation or we’re having a retirement conversation.” There’s been talk of a big budget, but so much of it is all tied solely to 2019."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Farmers onlyFeaturesPlayoffsHistory/Hall of FamePeer into the FutureHot StoveCincinnati Reds RumorsWill a ‘record’ Cincinnati Reds payroll extend beyond the 2019 season?New,120commentsThere’s been talk of a big budget, but so much of it is all tied solely to 2019.The Enquirer’s John Fay. Those two numbers would suggest that the Reds could have as much as some $30 million left to spend in this particular offseason, which is enough for the 2019 payroll to even accommodate the lone free agent to whom they’ve been specifically connected who is expected to land a long-term deal - Dallas Keuchel.The thing that continues to be in the spotlight for me, I think, is the precise definition of record payroll that the ownership and front office continue to reference. For exercise, let’s just create a fantasy world for this Reds offseason that at least connects many of the dots we’ve seen outlined in speculation above. Say they manage to land Sonny Gray from the Yankees and do so in a deal similar to the Roark acquisition, meaning they don’t really move established payroll to do so. Gray is estimated to earn $9.1 million in 2019, his final year of team control, and his addition to the active roster less a league-minimum salary player who’d otherwise be in that spot would raise the 2019 payroll to right around ~$112 million. Then, if the Reds signed Keuchel for the estimated 4 year, $82 million deal suggested by MLBTR, their 2019 record payroll would land at some $132.5 million, or right about where the estimated money bump has been speculated to end up after all.That would cobble together a 2019 Reds team that would, on paper, be significantly improved from their string of last place finishes in the NL Central. A starting rotation of Keuchel, Gray, Luis Castillo, Roark, and Anthony DeSclafani (or Tyler Mahle) sounds pretty cromulent, the bullpen would return as a strength, and top prospect Nick Senzel would get free reign in CF in the wake of Billy Hamilton’s non-tender. There’s even a slight chance that club tops the .500 mark, challenges for a Wild Card, and maybe even sneaks into a late-season division run. However, despite that multitude of would-be additions, it’s still likely that the powerful Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals (with Paul Goldschmidt) still end up better teams than those fantasy 2019 Reds http://www.astrosfanproshop.com/authentic-justin-verlander-jersey , and that’s the point where this entire article is focused.Yes, it is nice to see veteran additions to the current Reds. Yes, Roark, Gray, Keuchel, etc. would put a few more butts in seats in 2019, as would a full-time opening for Senzel for us to dream on. It would make for a record payroll, to which pundits could point and reference and cite as the Reds legitimately trying. But if spending that extra $30 million neither gets them to the postseason in 2019 nor brings in a bevy of established players beyond 2019, it pretty much leaves them right back in the same position in October 2019 where they are currently. That brings me to the projected 2020 payroll of the Reds in that particular fantasy scenario, and whether the claims of creating a record payroll are merely referencing a 2019 burst or something the club intends to make sustainable. 10 months from now, Roark’s $9.8 million and Gray’s $9.1 million come off the books in this scenario, as do the significant amounts currently due to Homer Bailey ($28 million, including the $5 million option buyout), Scooter Gennett ($10.7 million), and David Hernandez ($2.5 million). Jared Hughes, too, could leave, but we’ll assume his $3 million 2020 option is picked up (since so far it appears to be a great bargain). And since the Reds proactively locked up Iglesias, Tucker Barnhart, and Eugenio Suarez to savvy extensions, we know that trio’s collective salary only increases by a total of $6.25 million in 2020 over what they were set to make in 2019.We’ll also assume continued production and tendered contracts to arbitration eligible players like DeSclafani (~$4.5 million for 2020), Michael Lorenzen (~$3 million), Scott Schebler (~$2.7 million, Jose Peraza (~$6 million), Curt Casali (~$1.5 million), and Wandy Peralta (~$1 million) - and estimated raises that come with such things. That core, along with Joey Votto, Keuchel, and remaining active roster spots made up of league-minimum guys (a la Castillo, Senzel Brian McCann Jersey , Mahle, etc.) only brings the total committed payroll for the 2020 Reds to around $97 million. In other words, if the record payroll concept is one that the Reds are trying to stick to for a sustainable run to get them out of the doldrums of the rebuild and isn’t just a one-year thing for the 2019 season, the Reds would stand to have in the range of $30-35 million to spend again this time next year when such new, prominent free agents like Madison Bumgarner and Gerrit Cole will be on the open market. And, that’s the case even if the fantasy 2020 Reds we put together isn’t precisely a one-for-one with what actually happens, since a similar story would ring true even if the Reds managed to dump Homer and a prospect to the Dodgers for Kemp and Wood, for instance - all would come off the payroll at the end of the 2019 season in that scenario, too.There have been a few rumors connected to players the Reds would control beyond the 2019 season - Marcus Stroman and J.T. Realmuto being the ones most often cited - but even those two only come with team control through the 2020 season, and adding their expected salaries to that 2020 total above would still leave room again for significant additions again this time next year, too.The Reds have an army of really, really smart folks in their front office, which leads me to believe this is all quite calculated. Add pieces for the 2019 season that make the team better for now, and be willing to soak up some short-term salary to do so. Add a big fish piece (like Keuchel) if you can manage it, but don’t sign long-term pieces with huge committed dollar amounts if they aren’t the right fit. Expect improvement in 2019 with those moves, but know you’ve got a pile of reserves again this time in a year to continue to address issues, and use that reserve pool to give another year of hopeful improvement to the likes of Mahle, Senzel, Castillo, and the young core around whom they are still intending to build. Maybe that’ll need to be relief pitching. Maybe it’ll need to be a CF if Senzel takes over at 2B. Maybe, just maybe, it’s in extensions to one or two of the players only under contract for 2019. It could be any, none, or all of those things, but the Reds won’t already be on the hook for it right now - and they’ll have another year to determine where it should be best spent.That’ll lead to a record 2019 payroll one way or another. It might well lead to another one in 2020, but doesn’t automatically guarantee it. I think that’s actually a positive.