3 reasons why the Cardinals need to sign Jordan Walker to this extension right now

3 reasons why Jordan Walker should be offered an extension by the Cardinals like the one Corbin Carroll just signed

The St. Louis Cardinals entered Spring Training with hopes that Jordan Walker would make it difficult for them to send him to Triple-A Memphis to start the year. He has since blown away any expectations someone could have for him and has all but guaranteed a spot for himself on the Opening Day roster.

Like all top prospects looking to make a club's Opening Day roster, Walker's service time and potential manipulation of that has become a huge talking point amongst fans trying to speculate what the organization will do with him. If I were the Cardinals' front office, I'd end that entire discussion today like the Arizona Diamondbacks did with another consensual top prospect, Corbin Carroll.

Carroll, who most scouting outlets have as either the #1 or #2 prospect in all of baseball, has just 115 MLB plate appearances to his name after making his debut at the end of the 2022 season, just signed an eight-year, $111 million contract with the Diamondbacks that has a team option for a ninth year. While some may find a move like that to be extremely risky and unwise, it's a strategy many of the best front offices are taking these days.

Michael Harris II signed an eight-year, $72 million extension with the Braves after just 81 days of service time last season. Julio Rodriguez got a seven-year, $120 million deal with options that could make the deal as large as $470 million over ten more seasons. Maybe the most comparable is Luis Robert's extension with the White Sox, which ended up being a six-year, $50 million contract with two club options that could take it up to $88 million.

So why would the Cardinals entertain such a deal with Walker before Opening Day or shortly after? Here are some reasons why I think the Cardinals should pursue a Walker extension as soon as possible.

It has some risk, but a very high reward that outweighs that

Let's take a look at the Corbin Carroll deal for a moment. On the surface, it seems like a ton of money for someone who has barely skinned his teeth at the Major League level, but when you break down the deal year to year, it makes a ton of sense. NBC Sports reported the terms of the contract here.

Carroll gets a $5 million signing bonus and salaries of $1 million this year, $3 million in 2024 and $5 million in 2025. He receives $10 million in 2026, $12 million in 2027, $14 million in 2028 – the three seasons he likely would have been eligible for arbitration. Carroll’s deal calls for $28 million a year in both 2029 and 2030, years after he was in line to become a free agent. The Braves’ 2031 option is for $28 million with a $5 million buyout. If he wins an MVP award in any year from 2028-30, his salaries for every following season would escalate by $5 million. If he finishes second through fifth in MVP voting those years, his salaries in remaining seasons would go up by $2.5 million. The maximum increase in any year is $7.5 million...Carroll could earn $134M over 9 years.

Basically, Carroll is getting a pay bump in his pre-arbitration and arbitration years, but not by a ton. If Carroll is the player they think he'll be, $10 million, $12 million, and $14 million are pretty realistic arbitration numbers, and actually, they are likely less than what he would have made if he's the top-end player they hope. So even if he doesn't live up to all expectations, it's still a good deal during those years.

They did get to buy out two years of free agency in this thought at $28 million per season, with a club option for another year at that price. Carroll will be in his age 28-30 seasons during that stretch, meaning he'd likely be signing a mega-deal in the $35-$40 million per year range. With the way contracts are continuing to rise though, that may be more like $50 million per year by the time he hits free agency.

So yes, Arizona is taking on risk in this deal, but not so much that St. Louis and other clubs should be avoiding this. Where these early extensions tend to go wrong is when they are given to players who seem to have overperformed expectations and/or do not have a high ceiling. In the case of Carroll and Walker, both of these players have ceilings of top-10 players in all of baseball.

St. Louis should jump at the chance to lock up Walker long-term for this very reason. They may have one of the best, most exciting young players on their hands, and the longer they wait to commit to him long-term, the larger of a contract it will take. You could argue that they take on more risk here, but oftentimes, these players end up looking back at these early extensions and seeing that they could have made way more money had they waited.

Walker is already drawing comparisons to players like Fernando Tatis Jr., not because of their personalities, but because of the potential Walker has to take the league by storm. While I'll talk more about Walker's character and personality in a bit, another reason why I think this extension makes a ton of sense is the future clarity it gives to St. Louis.

The club has clairty on future payroll commitments

As is the case with every offseason, the Cardinals have to weigh the cost of acquiring talent against current and future payroll commitments, something that becomes easier to do when you know what your long-term outlook is. If the Cardinals can lock up Walker long-term early, this would help them a ton in the team-building process.

At the moment, the Cardinals only have a few long-term deals on their roster. Nolan Arenado and Willson Contreras are locked up through 2028 and 2029 respectively, Paul Goldschmidt and Tyler O'Neill under locked up through 2025, while Steven Matz, Giovanny Gallegos, Tommy Edman, and Ryan Helsley are under contract through 2026. The only players out of that mix that are not facing arbitration are Contreras, Arenado, Goldschmidt, Matz, and Gallegos, so the numbers on the other guys' contracts are subject to chance.

For this Cardinal front office, it will be easier for them to make difficult decisions on those core players if they know where they stand with Walker. Giving a long-term deal out to guys like O'Neill, Hesley, or Edman, or even resigning Goldschmidt, are hard to plan for if a looming mega-deal for Walker is present.

Outside of resigning their own talent, the Cardinals will likely need to spend on rotation and possibly bullpen pieces in the next few seasons, which again, they will need to plan for how that impacts the rest of their roster.

Even if the Cardinals give Walker a significant extension now, they aren't "wasting" the years when they could have had him on a cheap deal. Here's a list of players who will be playing on bargain contracts over the next 3-8 years: Masyn Winn, Tink Hence, Gordon Graceffo, Brendan Donovan, Nolan Gorman, Dylan Carlson, Lars Nootbaar, Moises Gomez, Alec Burleson, Juan Yepez, and so many more. The Cardinals have the internal depth to afford to hand out big extensions, and they should take advantage of that with Walker.

There's one more reason I think the Cardinals should offer such an extension to Walker, and it may be the most important reason of all.