Michael Wacha

On the record · career milestone this season

1,500 career strikeouts — Sat, Jun 27 · day game vs. Chicago White Sox The scorecard → · The write-up →

The card rack

FlagshipMichael Wacha [Gold] #190 · 2026 Topps · 52 recent sales 7N ▼0.5%

$2.00Raw$13.09PSA 9$38.76PSA 10$50.00BGS 10PSA 10 · 45 nights

Live on eBay now · asking, not sold · as of 2026-08-28 · paid links

$1.49Ungraded$1.50Ungraded$1.79Ungraded

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The rookieMichael Wacha #US168 · 2013 Topps Update · 21 recent sales 7N ▲0%

$1.19Raw$14.99PSA 9$18.00PSA 10$23.00BGS 10PSA 10 · 43 nights

Live on eBay now · asking, not sold · as of 2026-08-28 · paid links

$0.99Ungraded$0.99Ungraded$0.99Ungraded

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Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases. · Flagship = his most-traded card (the market’s reference); the rookie = the top card of his first card year. As of August 28, 2026 · trend is FVR's own nightly archive · prices via SportsCardsPro · what these terms mean

Scout’s note

Iowa City gave baseball a first-round pick in 2012, and Wacha is still here at 35 — 6-foot-6, 1,542 career strikeouts, a 3.49 ERA over 162.2 innings for Kansas City. The stuff model is stability-tested but not outcome-validated, so no arm gets a board flag from it, and he's in the Index without a grade. The ERA-FIP luck gap did clear our bar, and that call is filed by hand — the science has to finish before the grade does.

Current signals

The read: Wacha is in the Index ungraded, on purpose: our stuff model is stability-tested but not outcome-validated, so no big-league arm gets a board flag from it — not even one of the best seasons in the sport. (Calls are another matter: the ERA-FIP luck gap did clear the bar, and we file arm regression calls by hand from it.) The page is here because the player matters; the board grade waits for the science.

WAR (season · MLB calc)

2.2

A market fact, not an engine read: what a club decided about him, on the season before this one. Figures from Cot’s, as of August 19, 2026.

2026 salary

$18.00M

Tax hit

$17.00M

Service time

12 yr 62 d

Guaranteed

$51M

Cash and the tax hit are two different rulebooks and are never subtracted from one another — see the payroll board for his club, Kansas City Royals.

A second set of books

The same contract, read by MLB Spreadsheets (Ethan Hullihen), as of August 20, 2026. We keep two sources on this because one source cannot check itself.

Tax AAV

$17.0M

Guaranteed

$51.0M

Term

3 yrs

His class

Extension

The tax AAV above is his number under the CBA’s own rulebook, not the average we work out from Cot’s total. On a contract with deferred money the two come apart on purpose — and neither is subtracted from the other.

Collect Michael Wacha

If the signal is right, the cardboard usually finds out later. Current listings:

High-end listings ($75+) →

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Not financial advice. We take positions only after publication — never before. Misses stay on the record.