The Brewers' handling of their top prospect created a blueprint for Cardinals in 2025

Last season, the St. Louis Cardinals opened the season giving the fans a glimpse of the future, with top prospects Jordan Walker and Victor Scott II making the Opening Day starting lineup out of Spring Training. While this was not Walker's first taste of the majors, the thoughts around the league were that he would build off his strong end of 2023 and exhibition league and show the potential that made him an exciting prospect. Scott II, on the other hand, was not expected to make the lineup but Walker's collision with Dylan Carlson during the last Spring Training game opened the spot to the organization's #4 prospect.

Early season struggles for the youngsters

In what has been well-documented to this point in his young career, the drawback of Walker is his inability to use his massive frame and unleash his power potential. Along with his frustrating knack for hitting ground balls, Walker has also shown a massive hole in his plate discipline and consistently chased breaking balls out of the zone.

Walker finally looked to put some of those concerns behind as his 2024 spring training performance saw him knock four extra-base hits and draw eight walks in 50 at-bats, good for a .753 OPS. To open the regular season, Walker slotted in the bottom third of the lineup to hopefully ease the pressure of big situations, especially with veteran run producers like Goldschmidt, Arenado, Gorman, and Contreras hitting in front of him. Unfortunately for Walker, the exhibition success did not roll over into the regular season. By the end of April, Walker accumulated 58 at-bats but only notched five hits en route to a .155 batting average. His plate discipline concern rose its head again as he struck out in 31% of those at-bats. These early season struggles caused the Cardinals to demote Walker back to AAA-Memphis at the end of April, where he remained until mid-August.

Moving over to the lefty speedster Victor Scott II, his Spring Training performance caused excitement as VSII finished the exhibition with a .317/.404/.366 slash line and four stolen bases. Another reason for optimism was his knowledge of the strike zone as he took five walks to go against his seven strikeouts. The aforementioned Carlson injury moved VSII from a top role in Memphis to the starting center fielder at the bottom of the lineup for the regular season opener.

Where Scott differs from Walker is that, while also a top prospect within the organization, most of his value came from his 80-grade speed, 70-grade field, and potential to grow into a solid contact hitter at the top of the lineup. Scott's 2023 minor league season was one for the record books as the 22-year-old combined to hit .303 with 10 triples and 9 home runs to go with his outstanding 94 stolen bases between A and AA. That offseason saw Scott participate in the Arizona Fall League, where he continued his success with another 18 stolen bases in just 23 games.

Fast forward to Scott's Major League debut month and it started to look like him skipping the AAA level was too much of a jump for the young speedster. While he was given 59 at-bats with the big club to prove his value, he did not take advantage of the opportunity. By the time of his demotion in late April, VSII was hitting an abysmal .085 with a total of five hits and only two stolen bases. Much of the concern around Scott was his elevated strikeout total and poor plate discipline as he struck out 15 times compared to just two walks.

Another talented rookie struggles but sticks in the bigs

The Cardinals' slow start to the 2024 season was well documented, but that was not going to force the other teams around the division to deviate from their plans. Before the 2024 season started, the Brewers gave 19-year-old outfield phenom Jackson Chourio an eight-year extension. At the time, Chourio was MLB's #2 prospect but had not yet taken a major league at-bat.

As seen with Walker and Scott II, Chourio performed well during Spring Training with a starting outfield spot guaranteed to him. During the exhibition season, Chourio hit .323 with four extra-base hits and two stolen bases, pretty much in line with the Cardinals' two young outfielders.

Staying in line with the other two, Chourio struggled through April with a .176 batting average and 31 strikeouts in 85 at-bats, but he did knock four homers during the month. It is at this point where the similarities between the Brewers' and Cardinals' handlings of their young stars end. Despite his struggles, the Brewers stayed committed to their franchise cornerstone and kept him in the major leagues. While Walker and Scott looked to refine their craft with new approaches at the minor league level, Chourio was given every opportunity to learn against the talent he will be seeing for the remainder of his big league career.

While the results were not immediate, Chourio's May showed extreme improvement with his plate discipline, dropping his K-rate from over 36% to a league-average 20%. The decreased strikeout rate did have unwanted results as well, however. His average did increase to above the Mendoza line to a .215, but he only hit one home run during the month of May. Again, despite these below-average numbers, the Brewers kept sending Chourio out to face Major League pitchers every day.

What can the Cardinals learn?

While Walker was in the minors from May to July, the outfielder was still only hitting near the mid-.200s but did have his slugging percentage approach the .400 mark and dropped his strikeout rate to around 22%. During the summer months, the Cardinals were working through struggles of their own in the outfield but did not want to keep putting Walker in a position where he may not play every day at the big league level. Despite this concern, the team curiously recalled him on August 12 to fill a strict platoon role before another demotion. Walker was called up to stay for the remainder of the season at the end of August. To finish the season, Walker showed some growth as he hit .253 in September with five home runs and 16 RBIs, but was still striking out over 30% of the time.

VSII was recalled a couple of times during the summer, with short stints in August and September. At this point, however, the Cardinals decided that the defense of Michael Siani was much more important to the everyday lineup than Scott's speed and need to develop, so he only received a total of 86 at-bats during the season's final two months. The results were an improvement but still showed his offensive holes, as VSII hit six doubles and only stole three bases to go along with his 27:4 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

What was Chourio doing during this time? In June and July, while Walker and Scott were re-learning their offensive approaches in Memphis, Chourio was laying waste to Major League pitchers, as he hit over .315 with seven homers, 11 doubles, and 28 RBIs for the Brewers. After the All-Star break, Chourio stayed scorching hot for the rest of the year despite Christian Yelich's bad back knocking him out for the rest of the year. In his final 252 at-bats after the break, Chourio hit a scorching .301/.363/.552 for an outstanding .915 OPS. Despite having about 20 fewer at-bats than he did in the first half, he increased his power numbers to finish with 21 home runs and 79 RBI while also keeping his strikeout and walk totals consistent before finishing with a third-place finish in a stacked Rookie of the Year vote.

The Brewers knew going into the season that Chourio was going to be the future of their franchise and did not let his early season struggles hamper that thought. The long-term feeling around the Cardinals' organization is that Jordan Walker was going to be the face of the new Cardinals and their new hitting coach Brant Brown has already been working with him this offseason.. Where the teams differed was in their timing of hitting the panic button. The Brewers felt it would be best to have their star learn with a big league coaching staff and face the best players in the world while the Cardinals' need to "win now" created a Memphis shuttle for Walker and Scott. With next season being a reset, hopefully, the Cardinals can take a page from the Brewers' development plan and truly let these two kids play.