Jordan Walker's historic career resurgence has shockingly little precedent

Another day, another Jordan Walker home run. If I'm being completely honest, I had basically given up on the idea that Walker would ever come close to his ceiling as a player with the St. Louis Cardinals, and now, he's looking like one of the best players in baseball. If he is truly breaking out, it's almost impossible to find comparable situations in baseball history.

Sure, we've had plenty of players "breakout" before; that's nothing new. But to have a player have success in his rookie year at such a young age, be one of the worst hitters in baseball the next two seasons (coupled with bad defensive value), and then start slugging like a superstar - you'll be hard pressed to find a comparison.

Trust me, I tried.

Since there really aren't easily tools out there to sort every player in baseball history by their first 1000 career plate appearances, which is approximately the number Walker had going into the 2026 season, I went back to the year 2000 to see if I could find a player who had a two year stretch as bad as Walker did early in their career, and then ended up bouncing back to become an All-Star level bat or better.

From 2024-2025, Walker put up a 68 wRC+ on a .211/.270/.324 slash line in 574 plate appearances, equating to -2.5 bWAR. Again, if you go sort Walker's production over that two-year stretch compared to other players with at least 500 plate appearances, he was among the bottom 10 bats in the game.

So, knowing that it may be difficult to find a player who was that bad at the plate who ended up putting up sustainable high-end offensive production for the rest of their career, I moved my filter up to seeing if there was a player that posted an 80 wRC+ or worse over a two-year stretch dating back to the year 2000 that went on to be one of the best bats in the game.

I found zero.

Zero.

The "closest" examples I could find were guys like Chris Davis, who, yes, was unbelievable at the plate for a few years after posting a 70 wRC+ from 2009-2010 in his age 23 and 24 seasons, but he only ended up with two elite offensive seasons in his career and one very good season. He finished his career as a 105 wRC+ hitter, so just barely above league-average.

DJ LeMahieu posted a 70 wRC+ for three seasons from ages 23-25, but he only ended up with three elite offensive seasons and is a league-average 100 wRC+ hitter for his career. You could try to make an argument for Cody Bellinger from 2021-2022 when he was 25 and 26, but he had already had multiple incredible seasons and an MVP award before a major injury knocked his production down to a 74 wRC+.

There just are not any examples in this century of a player producing as poorly at the plate as Walker did those two seasons and turning into an elite offensive player for a lengthy stretch of their career.

Now, if you go back to the 1990s, there is one player comp that does stick out pretty darn well, and it's actually a player that Walker has drawn comparisons to in the past.

Derrek Lee's resurgence is the closest comp to what Jordan Walker is doing with the Cardinals

In 1997, a 6'5, 21-year-old first baseman by the name of Derrek Lee debuted for the San Diego Padres, but was traded that offseason to the Miami Marlins for RHP Kevin Brown. Lee went on to have a really difficult time at the plate over the next two seasons, posting just an 82 OPS+ and 22 home runs in 211 games. Here is a side-by-side of Lee and Walker's age 22-23 seasons.

After those rough two seasons, Lee broke out in 2000 for the Marlins, posting a 122 wRC+ while slugging 28 home runs with a .291/.368/.507 slash line. For the rest of Lee's career, he posted a 109 wRC+ or better in each of his final 11 big league seasons, including six seasons with at least a 120 wRC+, three of those seasons being at a 130 wRC+ or higher, and two campaigns where his wRC+ ballooned to a 150 wRC+ (2009) and 170 wRC+ (2005).

For his career, Lee was competing with the likes of Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard, Todd Helton, Jeff Bagwell, and Prince Fielder for All-Star nods at first base, so he was only named to the All-Star team on two occasions, and while he got MVP votes in four seasons, his best finish by far was third in 2005. Lee was a 123 wRC+ for his career, an awesome mark for a 14-year big leaguer, especially considering how bad things started. From 2000 to his final season in 2011, Lee had an OPS of .879 and 127 OPS+. I think we'd all love to see that from Walker long-term!

Lee also played first base his entire career, so Walker, if he continues to develop defensively, has the chance to provide even more value in a corner outfield spot long-term.

We are just 16 games through the 2026 season, and Walker has already mashed eight home runs on a .333/.394/.767 slash line, good for a 1.161 OPS and 228 OPS+, putting up truly historic numbers, even for a franchise as rich in history as the Cardinals. Outside of a pretty high strikeout rate, Walker is literally doing no wrong at the plate right now. Even just last week, we could look at his splits between right-handed and left-handed pitching as a "concern", but now he's posting an OPS north of 1.000 against both sides. Walker has been the best hitter in baseball this year, bar none.

Is it realistic to expect him to keep that up? Of course not. But man, it's hard not to believe that Walker could be at least a 30 home run guy this year, posting an OPS well north of .800 and producing like one of the best hitters in the game this year. And clearly, he's already been producing like the very best, so we know the ceiling is there for him to be otherworldly at the plate.

We are truly in uncharted territory when it comes to the turnaround Walker has had this year, and by all indications, it is very real. This is easily the most important development in the Cardinals' organization in a long time, and while the Major League team has its warts right now as they rebuild, Walker is the shining (super)star that lets fans dream of contending days ahead.

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