Why Jordan Walker is struggling with the Cardinals

When Jordan Walker was flying through the minors, St. Louis Cardinals fans thought they had a potential budding superstar on their hands. He was ranked fourth in MLB.com’s prospect rankings. That ranking had him rubbing shoulders in the VIP area with Gunnar Henderson and Corbin Carroll. 

But now, he’s our missing superstar. I probably don’t need to tell you the whole sordid history of position changes, demotions to the minors, and struggles in the majors — you’ve felt that pain enough if you’ve watched him play the last couple of years. On top of that, there have been questions about his coachability and work ethic. It’s gone about as well as it did for the Americans in the spy race against the Soviets in the Cold War.

Which brings us to today. On the precipice of spring training 2026, this is it for Jordan Walker. Joshua Baez is coming. The Cardinals have more draft picks than the OKC Thunder and a stable of high-strikeout pitching prospects to make whatever trade they want to in order to bolster a pitiful outfield. It’s time to ask the question of all questions: How do you fix Jordan Walker?

This journey we’re embarking on may be more arduous than Odysseus trying to make his way back home. (Please tell me you’re planning to see the Christopher Nolan Odyssey film this summer. It’s going to be a banger.) So, we need to agree on some things up front – lodestars for our journey. There are three key things that hitters can be good at to my eye: make contact, hit the ball hard, and swing at pitches that allow this kind of damage. Let’s all recall Albert Pujols for a moment. Ah, the glory. Did he do all three of these things well? He did. Ok, case closed on the three keys to hitting.

Diagnosing the problem

Believe it or not, there is some excellent news in the profile of Jordan Walker if we’re going to solve the case of the missing superstar. Nobody in baseball swings harder than him. According to Baseball Savant (an incredible resource!), he’s in the 99th percentile in swing speed. This translates into a 91st percentile in average exit velocity, 87th percentile in hard hit percentage, and 66th percentile in barrel percentage. Jordan Walker is swinging the bat like John Henry against the machine. (Yes, John Henry died from exhaustion, and that’s a harsh parallel, but Walker’s career is on life support here.) If you prefer a baseball metaphor, and please read this in a whisper, he’s built like Aaron Judge and has that type of raw power. This is why the Cardinals haven’t given up in their quest to solve the case. Jordan Walker is a potential SAM missile battery.

Oh boy, is there bad news though. It’s baseball bad news on the scale of the doctor walking into your exam room with a look on her face that makes your stomach drop. Jordan Walker makes horrifically bad contact. What’s worse is that it’s two kinds of bad contact. His whiff percentage is in the first percentile. First. One. No one is baseball had a worse whiff percentage than his last year. That’s devastating. He swings at low and away sliders like your dog that just will not stop playing in the road. Pitchers could send Walker a picture of their slider grip before the game, tell him exactly when they’re planning to throw it, and he’d still swing and miss by a mile.

Remember I said there were two kinds of bad contact, though. Yeah, we’re not done. His launch angle sweet spot is also fifth percentile in all of baseball. Let me tell you what that means, although you can feel it in your bones like a storm on the horizon. The contact he’s making is not at an angle to do damage. He hits missiles…straight into the dirt. In golf they are colloquially known as worm burners, and there’s no doubt the Busch Stadium grounds crew can feel them.

The fix

We’ve sleuthed our way to a double contact issue. Now, is there any hope? I’m happy to report there is. In July of last season, Walker ran a .304/.373/.435 for a 130 wRC+. What did he do differently? First of all, he was far more selective at the plate. Because of the All-Star game, July was his lowest total games played in a month (besides an injury-riddled June), but his second highest walk total. Hitters in the MLB always do better when they are ahead in counts. Walker’s wRC+ when controlling the count were 216, 171, 121, 151. When behind in the count, those numbers falls to microscopic 27, 35, 22, and a downright laughable -37. That’s Siberia cold. Step one in the reclamation project is for Jordan Walker to display more patience at the plate. He can. He has done that before. And he must again to save his career.

The other clear fix is in what pitches Walker swings at. The good news is that the patient approach will help with this issue. Last year, Jordan Walker swung at more pitches out of the zone than at any time in his career and swung at the fewest pitches in the zone. This is a bad recipe, and we all watched the behemoth with slumped shoulders trudge back to the dugout too many times last year as evidence. This explains how a guy that hits scud missiles can have such bad contact quality. He’s scalding the pitches that pitchers want him to swing at. This will kill his career if it’s not corrected.

At 23 years old, this is it. If the missing superstar is ever going to rise, it’s going to be in this season. Here’s one thing I can guarantee: If I can find the fixes for Jordan Walker then I know that Brant Brown already knows them. Jordan, be coachable, I’m begging you. Hang out with Lars Nootbaar and become more selective. I still think it’s possible for the superstar to bloom in the middle of the Cardinals order, but pressing for results will only exacerbate the problem. The answer to this case is calm and patience. Relax, Jordan.