Jordan Walker is back in the big leagues. The Cardinals on Monday announced that they’ve recalled the former top prospect from Triple-A Memphis and placed Matt Carpenter on the 10-day injured list with a lower back strain. Carpenter’s IL placement is retroactive to Aug. 9.
Walker made his big league debut as a 20-year-old in 2023 and did so to considerable fanfare. The 2020 first-rounder entered last season ranked as a consensus top-five prospect in the entire sport, due largely to the potency of his bat. He pounded eight extra-base hits (three homers, five doubles) in 67 spring plate appearances and landed on the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster as their starting right fielder.
The learning curve for Walker proved fairly steep as he attempted to skip Triple-A entirely. He began his career on a 12-game hitting streak but soon fell into a slump at the plate. Given that he was already struggling to adapt to a shift to the outfield — his natural position, third base, is of course spoken for in St. Louis — the Cards optioned him near the end of April. He was sent down with a roughly average .274/.321/.397 batting line at the time.
Walker returned in June and looked like a new hitter. From June 2 through season’s end, he effectively maintained the same batting average but did so with a notable bump in OBP and considerably more power. Over his final 387 plate appearances, he hit .277/.346/.455 with 14 homers, 16 doubles, a pair of triples, an improved 8.8% walk rate and a 21.7% strikeout rate that sat lower than league average. For a player with minimal Triple-A experience who turned 21 in May, it was a highly encouraging finish to his rookie campaign.
Entering the current season, Walker had a lineup spot locked up. However, his ’24 campaign started out with a protracted swoon at the plate that saw him hit just .155/.239/.259 in 67 plate appearances before being optioned back to Memphis. He’s been there since, due primarily to the fact that his struggles have persisted since being sent back down. Through his first 252 plate appearances back in Memphis, Walker managed only a .234/.300/.357 batting line. His 8.3% walk rate and 19.1% strikeout rate were both solid, if unspectacular marks, but he’s had the same grounder-heavy approach that he’s shown in the major leagues. For a player with above-average but not elite speed — especially one whose calling card is 70- or 80-grade raw power — hitting nearly half your batted balls on the ground is a sub-optimal outcome.
Over the past few weeks, the now-22-year-old Walker has begun to turn things around in Memphis. He’s belted five homers and tallied a dozen extra-base hits over his past 16 games. It’s only a sample of 67 plate appearances, but Walker has sizzled with a .343/.400/.687 slash in that time — far and away his best stretch of the season at any level.
The Cardinals will be hoping to see more of that level of output from Walker as they push to get back into Wild Card position. Though St. Louis has spent a good portion of the summer in possession of a Wild Card spot in the National League, they’ve dropped a game and a half behind the Braves, who currently hold the third spot. The Mets are a game ahead of the Cardinals and are also vying for the final spot.
St. Louis has struggled against left-handed pitching throughout the season, currently ranking as one of the worst lineups in baseball versus southpaws. Their combined .233/.296/.359 slash against lefties translates to an 85 wRC+ (suggesting they’re 15% worse than league-average at the plate). Walker will give them another right-handed bat to help attack opposing lefties, but it’s worth pointing out that he’s struggled tremendously against lefties both in the majors last year and in Triple-A this season. Walker batted .231/.294/.389 against southpaws in ’23 and has a combined .234/.304/.378 slash against them between Memphis and St. Louis this season.