Ridiculous article completely misses the mark on Jordan Walker's Cardinals future

Many St. Louis Cardinals fans are just beginning to experience a rebuild for the first time in their lives, so for those who are unfamiliar with what a team should and shouldn't do to embark on a successful rebuild, here are a couple general guidelines:

Do: Trade away your older players who are still in their prime but who are unlikely to contribute to a championship with your team, and acquire young prospects in return.

Don't: Trade away your prized young players who can help you in the future for even younger, more unproven players who might help you in a more distant and uncertain future.

The Cardinals under new president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom accomplished the first part of this puzzle and may still be pondering more deals as they potentially shop Dustin May and Ryne Stanek at the trade deadline. But one FanSided writer believes the Cardinals should fly in the face of the second tenet.

It is foolish to say that now is the time for the Cardinals to trade Jordan Walker.

Walker is serving as the guiding light for a Cardinals team with subterranean expectations among large swathes of the baseball community. He's hit five home runs after knocking only six out of the park for the entire 2025 season, and several metrics indicate that Walker has made substantial changes to his swing and approach. It's clearly paying off.

According to this article, though, Walker doesn't appear to be a fit for the Cardinals' future and should thus be dealt immediately. This asinine take surmises that the rebuild will last for at least three years, which is how much team control Walker has remaining. The writer, Wynston Wilcox, goes on to say that if Walker's recent production is for real, he will command too much money once he reaches free agency for the Cardinals to want to pony up for his services.

So let's tackle the "rebuild" part of this first. The Cardinals may not contend this season, but they contain several young players already on the major league roster who could contribute to the next winning core. JJ Wetherholt, Masyn Winn, Alec Burleson and Ivan Herrera are quickly coalescing as the potential nucleus of a team that could make noise as soon as 2028, and although the pitching leaves more to be desired, Quinn Mathews and Liam Doyle should be ready to grab the reins of the rotation by that point.

Wilcox doesn't seem to understand that Walker isn't a part of the team who's just there to go along with the rebuild; he's there with the intention of being a key piece for the next contending Cardinals squad. Because he's been in the major leagues for three seasons already, it's easy to forget that Walker is only 23 and less than four months older than Wetherholt. If he keeps playing well this year, Walker will shove his name back into the conversation with Wetherholt, Winn, Burleson and Herrera as a future lineup linchpin.

If the Cardinals were to trade Walker for a younger player who wouldn't be ready for the major leagues for three or four seasons, they'd be needlessly extending the rebuild and kicking the can down the road. This would be the route that the perennially cellar-dwelling Pittsburgh Pirates have taken for so many seasons. The Cardinals are closer to competing than Wilcox realizes, so moving Walker, who should fit snugly into the Cardinals' winning window, would be a massive mistake.

Now for the monetary aspect. In 2028, the Cardinals will have the contracts of Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray completely paid off. As of now, they have no player under a guaranteed contract after 2026, and there has been chatter about the team potentially extending Wetherholt soon, which would provide more financial flexibility in the long run. This will give the Cardinals ample room to use their money how they see fit, and that could include granting Walker a long-term contract. So it's illogical to think the Cardinals will be in dire straits financially where they would need to trade Walker for cheaper players. The Cardinals could even sign a few free agents prior to that season to complement Walker and the rest of the budding talent they have now.

Cardinals fans shouldn't lose sleep over a Walker trade occurring, at least not anytime soon. No baseball team is going to start offering several top-tier prospects for Walker, a player who had faltered for three years, after he delivered strong production for the first two weeks in a season. Yes, his metrics are pointing in the right direction, but let's wait until pitchers adjust their tendencies and see if Walker can respond in kind.

It's possible that this version of Walker is just a flash in the pan and he regresses massively in the coming days. It's also possible that this is the first sign of a player finding his stroke and becoming an above-average major league hitter. Either way, any thought of trading him at this juncture is nonsensical and displays a poor understanding of the Cardinals' current trajectory.