The St. Louis Cardinals will go for the eighth straight win against the Washington Nationals on Sunday afternoon. It has been a remarkably positive stretch for the Cards, whose veteran roster appears to be kicking into high gear at an unexpected juncture.
This season began with fairly low expectations in St. Louis. After promising to steer the Cards toward the future, John Mozeliak did little to deliver on his proposed vision during the offseason. In what is now his final campaign as president of baseball ops, Mozeliak might have an accidental contender on his hands.
That puts more stress on the few members of the lineup and rotation who are not performing up to par. St. Louis has seen bounce-back productivity from the likes of Brendan Donovan and Nolan Arenado, but there is a glaring weak point in right field at the moment. Jordan Walker has completely bottomed out.
It's only his third season, but the 22-year-old is quickly losing his foothold in the Cardinals organization. A few more weeks of struggle, and St. Louis will need to strongly consider alternative options.
For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.
Jordan Walker's season-long slump puts Cardinals in a different position
A first-round pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, Walker arrived on the big-league stage with a bang in 2023. At the ripe age of 20, Walker put up a .787 OPS and 16 home runs in his rookie season. With his hulking 6-foot-6 frame and solid batted ball metrics, Walker looked the part of a future star and a potential face of the St. Loius clubhouse.
His follow-up campaign in 2024 was a bit more muted. Limited to 51 games by injury, Walker's metrics improved, but his production did not. He finished with a .619 OPS while providing concerningly subpar defense in the outfield.
This season felt like the fork in the road. Either Walker would bounce back and reassert himself in the organizational hierarchy, or he would continue to fade. So far, it has been the latter. It's still early, but Walker has a .531 OPS and almost twice as many strikeouts (40) as hits (22). We're almost halfway through May. Something's gotta change.
St. Louis risks too much simply offloading Walker, but if the right trade proposal comes along, with the right package of projectable prospects, the Cards will at least need to consider it. In the meantime, it feels like Walker is up for a demotion — either to the bench or, god forbid, all the way down to Triple-A.
Walker still gets is bat around quickly — 99th percentile for bat speed — and he's no stranger to hard contact, but the towering righty is also chasing pitches outside the zone with expected slugging in MLB's eighth percentile. So... the indicators are not great.
With Jose Berrero swinging the bat well (.824 OPS through 170 ABs), it feels like only a matter of time until St. Louis shakes things up and puts Walker on ice for a bit. Maybe he just needs a mental break to assess and adjust. Maybe a stint in the minors would help restore confidence. But, as is, this is not working and the Cardinals are trying to stack wins in a competitive NL Central. Again... something's gotta change.