Walker’s Redbird rise creates a logjam at several positions. What players are affected?
The Jordan Walker hype train has left the station with a full head of steam, and it seemingly won’t be slowed until it pulls in at the Busch Stadium MetroLink stop.
Not all hype, though, is unwarranted.
Walker’s prodigious skills have been on full display in the opening weeks of spring training, and the Cardinals are not shying away from providing him with opportunities to show he belongs on the opening day roster.
He’s hit leadoff. He’s hit third. He’s been penciled into both corner outfield spots. It would have been simple enough to provide him with spare opportunities in game action and then declare at spring’s end that he needs a few more reps at a new position and his first taste of Triple-A pitching before making his debut in the majors.
That has not been their strategy. The opportunity has been presented. It would be impossible to deny he’s taken steps to seize it.
What, then, are the downstream effects? Roster spots are finite, and the Cardinals are set to head north with only 13 available slots for position players. With no apparent injuries to date which could delay the start to anyone else’s season, Walker’s opportunity comes at a necessary cost to someone else.
Among those 13 spots, 10 are seemingly cemented in place — Willson Contreras and Andrew Knizner behind the plate, Nolan Arenado, Brendan Donovan, Tommy Edman, Nolan Gorman and Paul Goldschmidt in the infield, and Dylan Carlson, Lars Nootbaar and Tyler O’Neill in the outfield.
That leaves three spots to be distributed between Walker, Alec Burleson, Paul DeJong and Juan Yepez, to say nothing of more fringe candidates like José Fermín, Moisés Gómez, Oscar Mercado and Taylor Motter. How, then, do these puzzle pieces best fit?
The Cardinals have been adamant Walker is now a full-time outfielder, having moved off third base following last year’s trade deadline. Moreover, he’s been relegated to the corners; indeed, Tuesday’s start against the Detroit Tigers in Lakeland is the first game action he’s seen in right field as opposed to left.
With that in mind, in an average six-game week, the three outfield spots and DH account for 24 slots in a lineup. At least four of those DH appearances, however, are likely to be taken up by Gorman and rest days for Arenado, Contreras and Goldschmidt. That leaves 20 slots for five to six players in a given week — the three outfielders, Walker, and either or both of Burleson and Yepez.
O’Neill, to date, profiles as the everyday centerfielder. That development has to be considered a positive for Walker’s chances; one reason to move O’Neill out of left, where he’s won two Gold Gloves, is to open a spot there for Walker. Nootbaar, too, has been advertised as an everyday starter, and his lefty bat and versatile lineup positioning make him a clear fit. Between those two players, then, that’s a further 11 lineup slots off the board in an average week.
More about Cardinals options
That would leave nine chances to start spread among Carlson, Walker, and the other bench candidates. Surely, if Walker hits his way onto the team, it’ll be in a position as an everyday player himself. If that’s five of the remaining nine, it leaves four more starts to be spread among the others, Carlson included. That’s a light workload, but could be viable if there’s further flexibility on the roster.
Those calculations, of course, exclude DeJong and the other infielders entirely. Slowed by arm fatigue early in camp, this week marked DeJong’s first opportunity in the field at game speed. He has clubbed one homer as the DH in the early going, and the early returns on his winter swing work seem positive.
What he hasn’t been able to do, though, is demonstrate any positional versatility. If he’s the utility infielder, he has to be proficient at second and third as well as shortstop. History suggests he can handle it. Whether DeJong’s history is reliable is a fully open question.
The Cardinals have also shied away from getting game reps at shortstop for Brendan Donovan in the early going, preferring instead to increase the exposure of fellow top prospect Masyn Winn. Winn’s not likely to break camp with the club, but should Edman be unavailable for an extended period, he’s now played himself into a position to be a real consideration for a long audition.
Fascinating answers forthcoming?
Despite starting six games at shortstop in 2022, it remains the position at which Donovan is least familiar and least accomplished. If he can handle the spot as a backup, though, that provides additional versatility. If DeJong, conversely, can only be a shortstop, will he hit enough to secure his spot?
Can he be carried as a player with an uncertain bat and uneven deployments? That would seemingly be less likely than Walker earning his own spot, despite all of the financial ramifications on both sides of that equation.
There’s time for Walker to slow down of his own accord. There’s time for a seeming logjam to resolve itself through injury or transaction, as these things so often do. In two weeks, answers that seem difficult now may be easy and obvious.
The questions, though, are being pushed, and Jordan Walker is pushing them. The Cardinals, to their credit, have invited those questions when it would instead have been easy to avoid them. Their answers will be fascinating.
This story was originally published March 1, 2023 at 8:00 AM.