The Cardinals can't play their Jordan Walker games with JJ Wetherholt

JJ Wetherholt must be terrified. The St. Louis Cardinals' first-round pick in 2024, Wetherholt is already the Cardinals' top prospect and will carry the expectations that go with it. But Wetherholt only needs to look on the horizon to see how the organization has mangled its handling of another former mega-prospect in the person of Jordan Walker.

Walker ravaged the minor leagues and destroyed pitching in Spring Training in 2023, and the Cardinals brought him north to St. Louis with the big league club. Despite hitting well, Walker was demoted to Triple-A Memphis because the Cardinals wanted him to work on his launch angle. In 2024, Walker struggled enormously early in the season and was sent to Memphis again in an attempt to make him into more of a power hitter. 

After finally seeing some results near the end of the season and coinciding with an injury to outfielder Michael Siani, the Cardinals promoted Walker in August and proceeded to platoon him, minimizing his opportunities to improve by only putting him in the lineup against left-handed pitchers despite Walker's splits showing that he has performed better against right-handers in his career.

If the Cardinals continue to fail at developing players, their high draft positions won't mean anything as their top prospects keep flaming out. With the disclaimer that it is far too early to give up on Walker — he is only eight months older than Wetherholt — much of the blame on his developmental woes can be pointed directly at the organization. 

The Cardinals can't afford to meticulously tinker with Wetherholt if the potential second baseman of the future starts ripping the cover off the ball in the minor leagues but isn't immediately successful in his first taste of big-league ball. They should be smart enough to realize that Wetherholt, by virtue of being drafted out of college, is more polished and prepared for the major leagues than Walker was when he was drafted out of high school. Perhaps the Cardinals will therefore take a more hands-off approach to Wetherholt and not try to force him to be someone he isn't.

Wetherholt will likely have some exploitable holes in his first taste of the major leagues, but the Cardinals can't panic and try to reinvent him into a completely different player, and they will need to let him play as much as possible to rectify whatever issues he might have.

The Cardinals should take a look at what the Baltimore Orioles have done with Jackson Holliday, the consensus top prospect in baseball entering 2024, who hit an abysmal 2-for-34 in his initial exposure to the major leagues. After an understandable demotion to Triple-A, Holliday returned on July 31 and has hit .283 with a .911 OPS since then. The Orioles have played him nearly every day — and that's with a far deeper roster than what the Cardinals have.

The Cardinals' inability to get the most out of Walker or have a homegrown player reach stardom since Matt Carpenter or perhaps even Albert Pujols is likely sending chills down Wetherholt's spine. The Cardinals can't engage in these developmental shenanigans with Wetherholt and expect success. If they do, they'll see what's become a recurring theme: a player breaking out after leaving St. Louis for another organization. The Cardinals need to go back to being a team where players succeed because of them, not despite them, and Wetherholt is presenting them with another clean slate.