Is this former top prospect still a core player for Cardinals?

The St. Louis Cardinals have maintained this season is primarily about evaluating young players. It felt like a potential make-or-break year for Jordan Walker, in particular. Walker was viewed as an impact bat when he was a prospect. He impressed with a .276/.342/.445 showing with 16 homers as a 21-year-old rookie.

That promising debut feels like an increasingly distant memory. Walker regressed to a .201/.253/.366 line in 51 major league games last year. He spent a good portion of the season in Triple-A, where he was an average hitter. The Cards maintained that Walker would play every day in the majors this year. That’d give them more clarity on whether he projects as a core piece as John Mozeliak turns over baseball operations to Chaim Bloom going into 2026.

The audition has not gone well. Walker has battled a couple health issues. He missed a few weeks in early June with wrist inflammation, then lost around three weeks in the middle of the summer to appendicitis. He has been unproductive when healthy. Walker has managed just five home runs across 331 plate appearances. He’s batting .218/.272/.309 while striking out at a career-high 31.7% clip.

There are 249 hitters who have taken at least 300 trips to the plate. Walker is among the bottom ten in both on-base percentage and slugging. Most of the players with similarly poor numbers at least have defensive value to fall back upon. Walker is already in a corner outfield spot and grades as a well below-average right fielder. He hasn’t shown any sustained signs of figuring things out offensively. Walker carries a .229/.279/.328 line with poor strikeout and walk numbers in 37 games since his second injured list stint.

The Cardinals have continued playing him regularly, as they said they would coming into the season. That probably won’t carry into 2026 if Walker doesn’t make significant improvements. Hitting coach Brant Brown and manager Oli Marmol each had a blunt assessment of the 23-year-old on Tuesday.

“At some point in time, he’s going to have to devote more focus on preparation,” Brown told Bernie Miklasz of KMOX when asked what it’ll take for Walker to be more consistent (around 10:30 mark). “We’ve had long conversations with this. It’s not only looking at film on the (opposing) starter but also being able to come in on the first day of a series and taking a look at all the bullpen guys. All the information and video is available. Just so we’re not getting snuck up on when a guy comes in.”

Brown then spoke more generally about the offense and suggested some hitters have had a tendency to press, especially when they’re going through slumps, and become overly focused on targeting specific pitches.

After Brown’s comments, Marmol spoke with Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I need to see Jordan have a sense of urgency for the things that need to take place in order to give him consistent results,” the skipper said in response to a question about the team’s short-term hope.

“That goes with his move toward the ball, his preparation in the cage but also his approach in a game. … You have to start to see progress. It think it’s important as you are evaluating the next month, you need to start to see progress and consistency.”

Walker addressed Marmol’s comments Wednesday. He said he “(doesn’t) quite understand the urgency part” of the manager’s statement (link via Jeff Jones of The Belleville News-Democrat). 

Walker pointed to his best stretch of the season, when he hit .304 with a .373 on-base percentage in the first two weeks out of the All-Star break. He said he felt comfortable with his approach during that run and was working with Brown to get back to that feel.