After three seasons of odd inconsistency and awkward adjustments, Jordan Walker is finally showing the promise that the team and its fans have been waiting for
By Jason Fink | April 9, 2026
I’m a kid of the ’80s. I grew up on Showbiz Pizza Place, Children’s Palace, He-Man, and Topps baseball cards. Then came 1989. That was the year Upper Deck dropped its inaugural baseball set, along with the Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card (#1). If you were around then, you know. That card didn’t just launch a brand; it launched a full-blown obsession. I’m still not convinced there aren’t people holed up somewhere, sitting on stacks of those things like baseball card dragons.
But for me, it always comes back to 1986 Topps, the first pack I ever bought. That set was perfect. Team names splashed across the top in team colors, player names clean and simple at the bottom, and photos that felt real, whether game action or those classic spring training shots.
And the stats? Simple. Honest. You would flip the card over and see something like 22 home runs and 87 RBIs. That was enough. No launch angles. No exit velocities. No overthinking. Which brings me to Jordan Walker.
A few short years ago, Walker was one of the top prospects in baseball, and for good reason. He tore through Single-A Palm Beach, Peoria, and Double-A Springfield, forcing the St. Louis Cardinals to bring him up. At first, it looked like the right call. As a rookie, Walker hit .276 with 16 home runs and 51 RBIs in 117 games. Stretch that over a full 162-game season, and you are looking at roughly 22 home runs and 71 RBIs. Not too shabby.
Then came the tinkering. In 2023, then-president of baseball operations John Mozeliak decided it was in Walker’s best interest to be sent down to Triple-A Memphis to “work on some things.” Those “things” mostly centered around his launch angle and ground-ball rate.
At the same time, the Cardinals pointed to a supposed outfield logjam featuring Tyler O’Neill, Dylan Carlson, Lars Nootbaar, and Alec Burleson. Here is what that “logjam” looked like over the same stretch:
• O’Neill — .254 | 2 HR | 5 RBI | .694 OPS
• Carlson — .254 | 0 HR | 5 RBI | .619 OPS
• Nootbaar — .304 | 2 HR | 7 RBI | .862 OPS
• Burleson — .232 | 1 HR | 7 RBI | .699 OPS
Meanwhile, Walker was hitting .274 with a .718 OPS before being sent down.
Yeah, some logjam. This was not exactly the 1961 Yankees outfield of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra. Instead of letting Walker develop naturally, the Cardinals tried to reshape him, chasing more launch angle, more lift, and more power. But not every hitter is built that way. Take Dmitri Young. He was not a launch-angle darling. He did not chase 30 home runs every year. What he did do was hit over .300 five times and finish with a .292 career average.
There is more than one way to be a great hitter. And sometimes, the worst thing you can do is try to “fix” something that is not broken. The results speak for themselves. Walker hit .201 in 2024 and .215 in 2025. Confidence dipped. Production followed. Instead of unleashing Emperor Palpatine-level “unlimited power,” the Cardinals got a short circuit.
Now, fast forward to 2026. With Mozeliak stepping down and Chaim Bloom taking over, it felt like a fresh start. Spring Training did not exactly inspire confidence. Walker hit just .205 with one home run. But spring stats are about as reliable as a weather forecast three weeks out. Once the games started to count, something changed. Through his first 12 games, Walker is hitting .295 with five home runs, 12 RBIs, and a 1.049 OPS. Small sample size? Sure. Encouraging? Absolutely.
Credit has been given to assistant hitting coach Casey Chenoweth, but more than anything, Walker looks like himself again, confident, aggressive, and free. And that is the point. Not every player needs to be optimized. Not every swing needs to be rebuilt. Not every hitter needs to chase the same blueprint. Sometimes, you just need to let talent be talent.
If the Cardinals have learned anything from the last few years, it should be this: get out of the way. Because after everything, including the demotion, the mechanical overhauls, and the dip in performance, Jordan Walker looks like Jordan Walker again. And if that continues? Thirty home runs and 100 RBIs are not just realistic. It is exactly what this team and this fan base have been waiting for.
Jason Fink is a writer, husband, and dad of two based in St. Louis. A sports fan for over 40 years with a tremendous love for the St. Louis Blues and St. Louis Cardinals, he writes with the perspective of someone who’s lived every high and low. His work blends insight, storytelling, and the kind of opinions every fan has—but doesn’t always say out loud.