I’m not sure Hollywood could have come up with a more compelling story than Jordan Walker’s rise from the next great prospect to flameout at the Major League level to the face of the franchise for the St. Louis Cardinals.
It feels like ages ago, but following the 2025 season, Walker’s future was truly in doubt. Sure, he was going to be a part of the Cardinals in 2026, but how much longer did he have to turn around his performance? From 2024-25, Walker’s .595 OPS ranked 287th among 291 hitters with at least 550 plate appearances, and his -1.9 fWAR was last among that group. He struck out a ton, hit just .211, was not lifting the ball for damage and ranked as one of the worst defensive outfielders in the sport.
While the Cardinals weren’t ready to give up on Walker, they had also made it known they needed to see something change. Hitting coach Brant Brown told KMOX that, “At some point in time, he’s going to have to devote more focus on preparation,” while manager Oliver Marmol told 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.”
After an offseason of training and rebuilding himself at the plate, things did not seem to be going well during Spring Training. Walker slashed .205/.255/.273 with one home run in his 44 at-bats, and it looked like a real possibility that he wouldn’t even make the team coming out of camp. But after spending three days out of the lineup and in the Cardinals' hitting lab toward the end of camp, he finally felt things click, and that led to an incredible start to his 2026 campaign.
Through the month of April, Walker slashed .284/.354/.552, hitting more home runs (nine) in 30 games than he did in 111 games in 2025 (six). Walker was finally lifting the ball with authority, consistently spitting on pitches outside the zone, and he stepped up to the plate with the confidence that he could change the game any time he swung the bat. He looked like a completely different hitter, the one the Cardinals dreamed he could become when he was a rising prospect in the sport.
Through hard work with the Cardinals’ player development group and coaching staff -- Walker gives special credit to assistant hitting coach Casey Chenoweth, who spent significant time with him in Double-A in 2025 as well during his rehab assignment there -- the 24-year-old outfielder has been able to build an approach that allows him to reach the heights of his potential and mitigate the lows at the plate. Sure, Walker will still have stretches where he struggles. (He posted a .611 OPS in the first 15 games of September.) But he’s proven that he can get out of those slumps quicker than before.
The pinnacle moment of Walker’s season was easily the T-Mobile Home Run Derby, where he snatched victory from the hands of Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber as he blasted homer after homer at Citizens Bank Park. Boos rained down on Walker, and he had one message for the crowd as he held onto his new hardware.
“I was once told you don’t boo nobodies, so it feels pretty good.”
That somebody has turned in the Cardinals’ first 20-20 season since Tommy Pham did so back in 2017, and joined Albert Pujols and Fernando Tatis as the only players in franchise history to hit 28 or more home runs and drive in 100 or more runs at age 24 or younger.
Maybe most impressive of all is the sheer jump in production year over year. Walker’s OPS jumped an eye-popping 234 points from 2025, the best among all qualified hitters this year who had at least 350 plate appearances last season. The turnaround Walker had at the plate this year is truly rare, something that can’t be celebrated enough as the season comes to a close.
A year ago, the question was how much longer the Cardinals could wait for Jordan Walker? Now, it’s how far can he help take them? If this season was Walker’s comeback story, imagine what the sequel could look like.