Jordan Walker recalled to majors: Cardinals' former top prospect returns to St. Louis amid wild-card push

The St. Louis Cardinals have recalled highly regarded young outfielder Jordan Walker. Walker's return to the majors comes as a corresponding move to infielder Matt Carpenter's placement on the 10-day injured list with a lower-back strain. 

Walker, still just 22 years of age, authored an impressive rookie season in 2023, and expectations were high for the former top-10 overall prospect. However, Walker struggled in St. Louis to start the season, especially in terms of generating quality contact off the bat, and was optioned back to Triple-A Memphis after batting .155/.239/.259 through his first 20 games of 2024. For some time, Walker showed merely modest improvements back in the minors, which led to his extended stay in Memphis. Recently, though, something may have clicked thanks to some mechanical changes at the plate: 

Specifically, Walker is now starting out with a more open stance at the plate, a tweak that not only affords better vision and pitch-tracking, at least theoretically, but also forces Walker to "coil" more during his load phase and better tap into his substantial physical strength. While the sample size is quite small, the results coinciding with those changes have been impressive. 

Walker, the No. 21 overall pick of the 2020 draft, possibly saw his development initially compromised by aggressive promotion and a drastic position switch. He reached the majors at age 20 last year despite never having played above Double-A, and at the same time he was working to switch from his natural position of third base to the outfield. Given how much younger he was than his peer group, the fact that he skipped the top rung of the minors, and how much headspace he was devoting to learning the outfield while in the majors for an aspiring contender, Walker's 2023 season (16 home runs and a 113 OPS+ in 117 games for St. Louis) looks even more impressive. Walker, however, spent much of this past offseason working on his defense. That's understandable and praiseworthy, but it left him with perhaps not enough time to address the need to drive the ball in the air more often and, by extension, reduce his ground-ball tendencies. On that front, his recent surge is encouraging. Now Walker and the Cardinals will see if those gains can be sustained against big-league pitching. 

Walker's return comes as the Cardinals are in a scrap for the third and final wild-card spot in the National League. At present, they trail the Atlanta Braves by 1 1/2 games and are also just behind the New York Mets in the queue. In other words, they need Walker to produce for an offense that's struggled all season, especially against left-handed pitching.