The St. Louis Cardinals sent former top-prospect Jordan Walker to Triple-A on Wednesday. Walker was the Cardinals top prospect going into 2023 and was the no. 4 prospect in all of baseball heading into last season.
“Tough decision, definitely don’t want to get to the point where you send Walker back out,” said Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol on Wednesday. “We had a lot of discussions around what would be best for him at the moment and his continued development and if he would get limited at-bats because of (Alec) Burleson and others. It made sense for him to go down and play every day.”
Cardinals Send Down Former Top Prospect
Walker entered this season as the fourth youngest player in the league. The 21-year-old Walker was the Cardinals first-round draft pick in 2020. He started 2023 with the major league club in 2023 and played 117 games. He batted for a .276 average and slugged .445 on the season. Walker swatted 16 home runs in 2023 with 51 RBIs.
Walker’s Struggles So Far In 2024
The Cardinals offense has been struggling so far in 2024, and Walker has been a large part of that. Through 20 games, Walker has a .155 batting average with just four RBIs and no home runs. Walker is striking out on more than a quarter of his at-bats. According to Baseball Savant, the outfielder is also only finding the sweet spot on 28.6% of his batted ball events, which puts him in the bottom 20% of the league in that metric.
“As of right now he’ll take a couple days to strictly just work on the things he needs to work on before getting back into games. So maybe two to three days of that and then we’ll fire him back in there,” Marmol said.
The Cardinals feel this will be a chance for Walker to get his batting right at a lower level before re-joining the big-league club. Walker has been average as a defensive outfielder based on MLB standards. On the basepaths he’s still been an assess when he’s gotten on. His sprint speed averaged 28.1 mph, good for the top 20 percent of the league. According to Baseball Savant, his baserunning value is in the top ten percent of the league.
What This Means For The Cardinals Lineup
Presumably, this will mean more at-bats for Alec Burleson. So far this season, Burleson has been batting for an average of .255 through 51 at-bats. According to Baseball Savant, Burleson’s expected batting average in that time has been .325, good for the top five percent of the league. He’s finding the sweet spot on 42.9 percent of his batted ball events, good for the top 13 percent in the league.
Burleson’s strikeout rate is also lower than Walker’s. He strikes out 16.7 percent of the time, but his chase percentage is in the bottom 20 percent of the league, at 34.5 percent of the pitches he sees out of the zone.
While Burleson will slide into the everyday lineup, the Cardinals are waiting on Dylan Carlson and Tommy Edman to return from injury. For Now, Lars Nootbar and Brendan Donovan will likely continue to start at the other outfield spots.
Minor leaguers Getting A Chance.
Shortstop Jose Fermin was called up on Wednesday in a corresponding move to Walker’s being sent down. Fermin had 61 at-bats in 2023 and batted for a .279 average.
A few days before this move, catcher Pedro Pages was called up when outfielder Victor Scott was sent down. Pages took a three-and-a-half-hour Uber ride from Indianapolis to get to the Major League club this weekend. He will back up Wilson Contreras and Ivan Herrara. They’ve been the Cardinals’ most consistent hitters to start the season.
“I’m Sticking to my routine, finding a way to stick to my routine, especially being like pretty much the third guy right now,” Pages told Bally Sports Midwest. I’m just sticking to my routine, staying ready, staying prepared, and being engaged in the game, watching these guys go out there every day and compete.”
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