Walker to Memphis: Do I Actually Really feel the Manner I Really feel?

I’ve change into more and more satisfied that a variety of the delicate roster building hacks some groups use to get essentially the most out of their prospects — service time manipulation, extraordinarily restrictive pitcher workload administration, drafting by bonus demand moderately than selecting the perfect participant obtainable — are too cute by half. Typically it pays off, however typically, gamers are going to be good, or they’re not. They’re going to remain wholesome, or they’re not. And fixating on the externalities is finally self-defeating.

Take into account Jordan Walker. The St. Louis Cardinals, to their immense credit score, introduced Walker north from spring coaching final yr. The no. 12 international prospect that offseason, Walker was solely 20 on the time, and hadn’t had a lot as a sniff at Triple-A. However he was athletic for his 6-foot-5 body, which promised a lot energy the query was whether or not scouts may precisely report it earlier than they ran out of pluses.

Did it matter that the Cardinals had a particularly crowded outfield on the time? No. Did it matter that if Walker lived as much as his potential, he’d hit free company at age 26? No. The one factor that mattered was whether or not he’d sink or swim.

13 months later, Walker is being demoted for the second time since his massive league debut. The primary demotion, which got here nearly precisely a yr in the past, was arguably undeserved. Walker had began his main league profession with a 12-game hit streak; even after a 5-for-26 stoop that included simply two walks and one extra-base hit, the massive man was hitting .274/.321/.397.

However, seven weeks in Memphis did Walker good; after his return, he hit .277/.346/.455 with 14 residence runs in his remaining 97 video games. And he was nonetheless hitting the ball onerous; 6.0% of Walker’s batted balls went out at 110 mph or extra, putting him one spot forward of anthropomorphic bicep Yandy Díaz on the leaderboard. It wasn’t all the time fairly, however a 116 wRC+ over 465 PA, with a strikeout price of twenty-two.4% — you’d take that from a rookie nook outfielder in his age-21 season, wouldn’t you?

This winter, the outfield logjam cleared out just a little, with Tyler O’Neill being shipped as much as Boston and utilityman Tommy Edman recovering from offseason surgical procedure. Additionally, Dylan Carlson, the Cardinals’ different gifted however irritating younger outfielder, is at the moment on the IL. (I do know — extra on that later.)

So how did Walker, after a promising 2023, play his manner off the roster in 4 weeks?

Nicely, suffice it to say, hitting .155/.239/.259 as a beginning nook outfielder will get nearly anybody benched, irrespective of their prospect pedigree.

When a participant like Walker — a giant, lengthy hitter with plus uncooked energy however comparatively little main league expertise — struggles, the logical factor to imagine is that he’s not making sufficient contact. Actually that was the very first thing I assumed. However that’s not likely it. In comparison with final yr, Walker is swinging much less outdoors the zone and swinging extra in it. He’s making barely extra contact, and insofar as his Ok% has risen, it’s carried out so by the equal of roughly one strikeout each 10 days.

What about high quality of contact? Nicely, Walker is hitting the ball practically as onerous; his barrel price is as much as nearly 12%. When you take a look at Sports activities Data Options’ gentle, medium, and onerous contact buckets, Walker is operating the very same Smooth% as Mookie Betts, with a greater Exhausting%. And despite the fact that there had been earlier drama over what number of groundballs Walker was hitting, his GB/FB ratio has truly gone down.

That final level, nevertheless, will not be truly excellent news. See, Walker was truly hitting extra grounders than earlier than, however his GB/FB ratio went down as a result of he’s hitting nearly no line drives — simply two liners in 67 plate appearances. On the time of Walker’s demotion, 233 gamers had batted at the least 60 occasions this yr; Walker is 232nd in line drive price. (Poor Parker Meadows, God bless him, remains to be in search of his first liner of 2024.)

Now, I don’t care for those who’re Christian Yelich or Aaron Choose — each hitter wants line drives to outlive, irrespective of if he’s a ground-and-pound man or an elevate-and-celebrate man. They’re the perfect form of batted ball, and if Walker’s not getting any, it’s no marvel he’s hitting .155. Baseball Savant defines a “Candy Spot” launch angle as being between eight and 32 levels. Of his 15 hardest-hit balls this yr — beginning at 98.7 mph — Walker has gotten into that launch angle vary simply thrice. He’s hit extra balls in that velocity band (4) with a launch angle between minus-8 and minus-32.

Walker’s exit velocity numbers have been good (although in no way nice — after Monday’s motion, he’s 78th out of 279 certified hitters on Baseball Savant’s EV50 leaderboard). However he’s gotten comically little out of his onerous contact. Listed below are Walker’s numbers on batted balls of at the least 90 and 100 mph, and the place that manufacturing ranked on the time of his demotion:

It beggars perception, frankly, the extent to which Walker’s onerous contact has been unproductive. And add on that even inside that context, he’s been unfortunate.

So the Cardinals have a nook outfielder who’s hitting .155 with little energy, whose launch angles would look higher if he got here to the plate hanging upside-down from his ankles. And he hasn’t made a lot of a case to stay within the majors primarily based on his protection. In his most up-to-date Friday column, Ben Clemens gave Walker props for a full-extension diving catch to rob Jackson Merrill of additional bases. However that catch is a historic outlier.

Final season, Walker posted a WAR whole of 1.0, regardless of that aforementioned 116 wRC+. Which appears awfully low, even for a nook outfielder who didn’t fairly qualify for the batting title. Positive sufficient, he was horrendous defensively; his OAA was -14, putting him lifeless final amongst certified outfielders. It was an actual query of whether or not this 21-year-old with plus dash velocity was a worse defender than Kyle Schwarber final yr.

And now looks like a great time to revisit how, precisely, Carlson got here to be on the IL. Over the last week of spring coaching, Carlson and Walker converged on a gapper in right-center. Walker dove, both to catch the ball or to keep away from his onrushing middle fielder, and within the course of unintentionally went all Darius Kasparaitis on Carlson’s legs. Carlson, tumbling ass-over-tea-kettle, landed badly on his shoulder and is barely now getting ready to embark on a rehab project.

Clearly it’s too early to surrender on Walker within the broader sense. All the abilities that made him a top-15 international prospect are nonetheless there, and he’s nonetheless a month shy of turning 22. And as unhealthy as his offensive outcomes have been, there’s a reputable argument that he’s suffered a tragic smiting by the BABIP gods.

However, this can be a textbook case of a participant who must spend a while in Triple-A, the place the wins and losses don’t matter and his failures — moderately than being fodder for nationwide baseball columnists — will probably be between him, his coaches, and the malevolent all-seeing eye that inhabits the Bass Professional Outlets pyramid in Memphis. One thing has gone critically incorrect, and neither crew nor participant is served by pretending in any other case.