The Cardinals thought they had a future star on their hands during the outfield Jordan WalkerThe first few years in the organization. Drafted 21st overall out of high school in 2020, the third baseman went through the Single-A, High-A and Double-A levels with a combined line of .310/.388/.525 through 2022.
Widely considered one of the game’s top five prospects entering 2023, Walker cracked the Cardinals’ Opening Day program as a 20-year-old and avoided Triple-A time. That may have been too aggressive on the part of the Cardinals, as Walker’s career has not gone well. However, now in his fourth season at St. Louis, signs point to Walker finally living up to the hype at the age of 24.
With Nolan Arenado anchored as the Cardinals’ third baseman the past three years, they moved Walker to right field. He got the bulk of the playing time there during the first few weeks of his rookie campaign and turned heads during a career-opening 12-game hitting streak. While Walker hit a respectable .279/.329/.412 with two home runs in his first 20 games in the bigs, it’s disappointing that he averaged three walks against 20 strikeouts. With Walker also trying to adjust to a different position, the Cardinals sent him to Triple-A Memphis for the first time in late April.
Walker compiled a subpar .239/.349/.398 line in 135 plate appearances over the course of a 29-game trip to Memphis, but his walk, strikeout and groundball rate are all trending in the right direction. The Cardinals saw enough progress to call the 6-foot-6, 250-pounder back to the majors in early June. He held his own since then and finished with a 117-game, 465-plate appearance in the first season in St. Louis with a solid .277/.346/.455 (116 wRC+) line, 16 homers, and walk (8.0%) and strikeout (22.4%) rates around the league average. He drew negative marks in the right field (minus-7 Defensive Runs Saved, minus-7 Outs Above Average, minus-6 Fielding Run Value), but that wasn’t surprising for a young player transitioning to a new position.
The Cardinals and Walker likely entered his second season hoping not to send him back to the minors for performance-based reasons. It didn’t work that way. Walker’s offensive production dipped in 2024, when the Cardinals picked him twice, and he never recovered last year. He played in 162 major league games starting in 2024-25 and hit a miserable .211/.270/.324 with 11 homers, a 30.7% strikeout rate and a 6.8% walk rate over 574 plate appearances. Among the 291 hitters who collected at least 550 trips to the plate during that two-year span, Walker ranked last in fWAR (minus-1.9) and seventh from the bottom in wRC+ (68). He did not succeed in this field, where he continued to receive low marks (minus-15 DRS, minus-12 FRV, minus-8 OAA).
Last September, a few weeks before the end of a disappointing year for Walker and the Cardinals, coach Brant Brown and manager Oliver Marmol asked more of the former honoree. Brown said Walker would “we have to focus more on preparation.” At that time, Marmol called “a sense of urgency” from Walker, though he made sure to note, “I’m not even close to giving up on Jordan Walker.”
John Mozeliak, who drafted Walker, stepped down as the Cardinals’ president of baseball operations after last season. Former Red Sox baseball executive Chaim Bloom then took over in St. Louis. Bloom has been a member of the Cardinals’ front office since 2024, meaning he witnessed Walker’s two-year decline firsthand. But Bloom, like Marmol, wasn’t ready to wave the white flag on Walker entering this season.
When MLB.com’s Bill Ladson asked Bloom about Walker’s plight in March, the official responded: “We all know that ultimately this is a results business, but we get results by having a great program. Jordan’s process this offseason is as good as I’ve seen since I’ve been in this organization.”
Bloom added that he had “great hope” about Walker changing his career, though it looked pretty much the same in spring training. Walker took 47 trips to the plate in 14 exhibition games and hit a miek .205/.255/.273 with one homer, 16 strikeouts and three walks. He entered 2026 as the Cardinals’ first baseman. If you were expecting another tough season from Walker, you may have had a lot of company. But about a third of the way through, Walker was a revelation. His performance was a key factor in a 29-23 start for the Cardinals, who have clinched a wild-card spot as June approaches. FanGraphs has given the Cardinals a slim 8.5% chance of making the playoffs before the season starts in late March. Now at 27.6%, that probability has doubled more than two months later.
The Cardinals’ offense has received significant contributions from the stud rookie second baseman JJ WetherholtDH/hunter Ivan Herrera and first baseman Alec Burlesonbut Walker was easily their biggest threat. Across 51 games and 218 plate appearances, Walker slashed .297/.367/.585 with improved hitting and walk percentages of 25.7 and 9.2 percent, respectively. He sits fourth in the majors in wRC+ (168), seventh in ISO (.287), tied for seventh in HR (15) and tied for 14th in fWAR (2.2). Same-handed pitchers have been especially strong for Walker who is grinding well since 2024-25, but he put up a similar 168 wRC+ against them and lefties this year. While inconsistencies have been another prominent issue for Walker over the years, there hasn’t been an eye-popping meltdown so far. The season is 62 days old, and Walker’s OPS has been .900-plus in 57 of them.
Deep down, this looks more like a true explosion than a fluke. In his first three seasons, Walker has paired a 47.9% ground ball rate with a 37.5% fly ball percentage. That prevented him from using his power and using his elite bat speed. He is now hitting grounders at a 39.3% clip and fly balls 44.3% of the time. That clearly indicates that the bat speed is in the 100th percentile. He boasted a 99 percent bat speed last year, but that was one of the few red marks on Baseball Savant’s page that shows so much blue. It’s red hot this year, as Walker is also near the top of the league in expected batting average (81 percent), expected on-base percentage (90) and expected slugging percentage (93). Those are just a few of the Statcast categories that support his offensive explosion.
If you’re looking for a possible reason for the negative regression, it’s easy to point to Walker’s .344 batting average on balls in play. He’s a speedster whose strikeout rate falls in the 92nd percentile, but fewer than 10 players typically support that high of a BABIP in a given season. Even if that drops, it may not be a huge drop for a player who arrived in 2026 with a lifetime BABIP above the .310 average (the league average is .286). A little BABIP luck would hurt Walker’s .412 wOBA, which is fifth-best in the game, but his .383 xwOBA doesn’t indicate his numbers will go off the cliff.
Turning to the defensive end, Walker has started 49 of the Cardinals’ 52 games in right field. Reviews have been mixed, which is a step up from the negatives he’s received in previous seasons. Walker had 6 DRS, tied for sixth among outfielders. His 99 arm strength was on full display when he shut down the Brewers. Christian Yelich in a game at the plate on Memorial Day. That was one of Walker’s league-high five assists. Despite the good progress, OAA and FRV (minus-2 alone) remained strong in his work on the grass.
While Walker’s defensive metrics vary, there’s no disputing that he’s been among the most aggressive players in the game for two months in 2026. With six years to go before the 2020 draft, it looks like Walker has finally blossomed into a cornerback for the Cardinals. He’ll have to make his first of three trips through the middle of the winter, but Walker could emerge as Bloom’s most valuable extension candidate if he continues to torment opposing pitchers.
