Cardinals should rein in Jordan Walker's decision-making at the plate

The 2026 Home Run Derby champion will have an opportunity to again rub it in Kyle Schwarber's face when the Phillies come to Busch Stadium this week. The show that Jordan Walker put on during the All-Star festivities will go down in history, but as regular season games continued, the St. Louis Cardinals may still have some underlying concerns about their star outfielder's plate discipline.

Walker has finally eased some concerns about a second-half collapse due to competing in the derby when he hit his first home run since and still has an OPS over .700 over the past month. He has done so with a much-improved contact rate and lower strikeout percentage, but his decision-making at the plate could stand for some adjustments. As teams have started to settle on their challenge strategy with the rollout of the ABS system, Walker has struggled to show his strike zone knowledge.

Cardinals need to see improvement in Jordan Walker's use of the ABS challenge system

Since the implementation of the automated strike zone, the Cardinals have been one of the most frugal teams when it comes to their batters challenging an umpire strike call. Their hitters have challenged a total of 99 calls this season which ranks as the fourth-lowest in the majors. The young lineup has been successful just 47% of the time (19th in baseball) and that rate has been driven down majorly by Walker's challenge decisions at the plate.

A couple of months ago, Masyn Winn spoke to FanGraphs about his stubbornness when using the challenge system and part of his explanation was to leave the helmet taps to guys like Walker. So far, Winn has tapped the helmet just eight times and has won six of those challenges. The eight taps are extremely low for Winn who, according to Baseball Savant, has had 45 "reasonable opportunities" to challenge the strike call. When compared to Walker, it might be time for the shortstop and outfielder to flip ABS strategies.

Through 488 plate appearances, Walker has challenged a strike 15 times, second-most on the team behind Ivan Herrera's 19 helmet taps. The success has not been there nearly enough for the breakout star, though, as he has had a call overturned just five times. His 33% success rate is tied for 14th-worst in baseball among players who have challenged at least 10 times. While Walker has trimmed his strikeout rate by 7% so far this season, this could show that there is still some work to be done on pitch recognition.

Savant's ABS tracking features show that Walker has not gotten a strikeout overturned or turned a strike into ball four, so it does seem as if the timing of his challenges are not overly concerning. It may be unfair to look too far into those decisions, however, as Savant does not show the count, inning, or score at the time of the helmet tap. It is possible that Walker could be taking the opportunity to challenge pitches to confirm his thoughts on the strike zone, especially as the game nears completion and the lost challenges do not harm the team.

The 2026 season has been a breakout for Jordan Walker across the board, with career highs in his slash line, homers, RBIs, and stolen bases while also trimming his strikeout rate tremendously. Since he has done it for 100+ games, we have to believe in the breakout and if the biggest remaining concern is his success rate with ABS challenges, he should be in store for a successful major league future.

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