It’s been highly entertaining to watch the transformation of Jordan Walker. He went from being the Cardinals’ biggest question and biggest enigma to becoming the biggest bat, biggest surprise – and, as Bruce Springesteen would say about the late-great and beloved sax player Clarence Clemons during a show – "the biggest man you've ever seen!”
Yep. Walker’s awakening and quaking is a big deal. As the Cardinals headed to Houston for a weekend series that begins Friday, Walker led the National League with eight homers and was second with 1.2 WAR, third with a .710 slugging percentage, and fourth with a 1.083 OPS.
Houston’s ballpark was made for hitters. So Walker will go into the “City of the Swang” and do some swinging. And there I go … referencing … Bun B?
I wanted to explore an issue in this edition of the Daily J Walker. It isn’t a big deal, but I enjoy going on fact-finding expeditions. And that’s especially true when I’m made aware of some fresh nonsense floating around.
Is Jordan Walker “clutch” enough?
Hey, that ain’t my question. My friend and KMOX colleague Matt Pauley got me going Wednesday by informing me that some fine people were taking their fingers to the X machine to point out some things. This season Walker’s offensive stats are phenomenal when the Cardinals are trailing in a game, terrible with a tie score, and not so hot when the Cardinals are in the lead.
This confused me. What’s the accusation here? And why is it apparently so bothersome to the typists that Walker has his best badass set of numbers when the Cardinals are behind on the scoreboard?
May I dare suggest that it’s a good thing to have the 6 feet 6 inches and 250 pounds of pure slugger walking to the plate with a bat and aiming to do some damage? You know. If your team needs runs to close the scoreboard gap and take down the enemy, then isn’t Walker a fantastic candidate for such an important project?
When the Cardinals are down and trying to rally this season, Walker is 15 for 29 (.517) with six homers and 12 runs batted in. This season, four Walker hits lifted St. Louis into the lead. One solo homer (in Washington) broke a 3-3 deadlock.
Another time, the Cards were losing to the Rays by five runs when Walker abetted a comeback attempt with a three-run homer to give his mates a shot at winning the game.
With the Cards gasping in Detroit and losing by five runs, Walker set up with the bases loaded and wrecked Jack Flaherty with a massive grand-slam home run that cut the lead to one run.
Another time in the Washington series the Cardinals were in arrears by three runs, and a Walker thunderclap got them going in a comeback that ended in a 7-6 win.
Another Walker wallop extended the Cardinals from one run to two and the boys took it from there for a 6-1 cruise. Two other Walker homers sliced into leads and brought the Cardinals closer.
They may have lost more than a few of these games … but how in the freakin’ world was that Walker’s fault? And, why would we blame Walker for hitting so many “solo” homers. Like, is he supposed to get himself on base two times in the same at-bat – there’s Walker standing at first base, and there’s Walker at second base, and there’s Walker in the batters box – and then bash a three-run homer? Is that allowed?
I don’t understand this particular grievance.
“Notice how he hits most of his home runs when the Cardinals are behind in the score? Someone needed to point that out.”
Is this supposed to be an analysis, or something?
That’s so outrageous of Walker! Send him down to Triple A Memphis. But just one question: if anyone is unimpressed with Walker hitting homers when the Cardinals are trailing, well, would a strikeout be more acceptable?
Walker does have poor numbers this season when the game is tied, but I didn’t realize that we can order up home runs on demand and he’s supposed to deliver. Besides, we’re talking about only 24 bats here.
Walker is 23. And his past two seasons were absolutely brutal. So are we really viewing him as an instant legend – he’s the next Hammerin’ Hank Aaron! – only 18 games into the new season. Yeah, he’ll have some disappointing stretches … and that’s called “baseball.”
Powerful dudes like Mark McGwire, Nelson Cruz, Carlos Delgado, Adam Dunn, Sammy Sosa and Dave Kingman had lower numbers in tie games – compared to their performances in ahead-or-trailing scenarios. You know: human beings and all of that.
So if we’re really trying to reach an honest verdict about Walker’s “clutch” gene … I’ll play along. Here are a few things for ya:
1. In high-leverage situations this season – the most pressurized situations – Walker hit the grand slam in Detroit. But he’s had only six at-bats in high-leverage scenarios.
2. Let’s combine his high-leverage and medium-leverage details. Medium-leverage situations are pretty dang important too. In 40 plate appearances: .324 average, .375 on-base rate, .703 slugging percentage, four home runs, 12 RBIs and a wRC+ that makes him 197 points above league average.
3. Per wRC+, Walker is a top-three performer in the NL among hitters in his performance in high-medium leverage spots. His four home runs in these spots are second in the majors to Aaron Judge (5).
4. With runners in scoring position this season, Walker has two homers, nine RBIs, and a .526 slugging percentage in just 19 at-bats. In another small sample size, Walker has a home run and a .500 slug in “close & late” situations.
5. In a revealing metric – situational Win Probability Added, normalized by the Leverage Index – Walker has the second-best rating by a major-league hitter this season. I know this is a complex spot, but here’s my best shot at a simple explanation: the metric measures a player's performance in high-leverage spots while stripping out the "luck" of when those spots occur. The only takeaway you need is to know that he ranks second in MLB in this category.
6. I offer this next breakdown to show just how much Walker has improved this season in high-medium leverage performance:
* 2024: .214 average, .331 slug, .612 OPS.
* 2025: .202 average, .305 slug, .588 OPS.
* 2026: .328 average .745 slug, 1.141 OPS.
Walker is still growing into this newer, larger and more prominent space in his evolving career.
After the relentless hell of 2024 and 2025, and considering the magnitude of Walker’s manifestation in 2026, it’s absurd to nitpick what he’s doing. But the overwhelming majority of Cardinal fans are sane and reasonable, and they appreciate what they’re seeing from the big man.
Thanks for reading, and please pardon my typos.
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach. Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.