Every year, or at least every year since 2012, we’ve taken some time after the season was over to look at the past 162 games through the lens of the players that played them (and the management that was in charge of them). Last year, the Exit Interview series spent less time digging into splits and finding numerical oddities and more time reflecting on the player and their season. It was a style that seemed to work so we’re going to bring it back again this year. The legendary cardinalsgifs is back to bring us excellent series art, so it’s all downhill after you see that!
Player: Jordan Walker
Stats: 51 G, 178 PA, 16 R, 10 2B, 1 3B, 5 HR, 20 RBI, 1 SB, .201/.253/.366, -0.9 bWAR
Statcast: 9.5% barrel, 29.3% sweet spot, 115.5 max exit velocity, .268 wOBA, .278 xwOBA, 28.1 K%, 5.6 BB%
Grade: D
If Brant Brown figures out Jordan Walker, he might get to keep the hitting coach job for a decade. While Walker’s rookie season didn’t necessarily meet fan expectations, especially with him being, shall we say, questionably deployed, his second half was fairly strong and it looked like he was settling in. Nobody would have ever expected that his first home run of 2024 would come on June 1st–as a member of the Memphis Redbirds. It was a surprise, even though he was hitting .155/.239/.259, for him to be sent down to AAA before the end of the first month of the season. The fact that he continued to struggle at AAA proved that the demotion wasn’t completely out of line.
That doesn’t mean the club still had a great handle on him. The idea that he was promoted in August to be a platoon bat against lefty starters–when they were starting a run of missing lefties–was puzzling, especially since they had traded for Tommy Pham to fill that role. They eventually figured that out, demoted him again, then had him return less than two weeks later. He did hit .253 with his 5 homers in September (and had a five-hit day in Yankee Stadium), so there were positives from the season, just not a whole lot of them.
What’s in store for 2025: It’s way too early to write off Walker, but it has definitely not been what we have expected the last two years. It would feel like another demotion to Memphis would be off the table so a good start to 2025 would feel like a must. Can Brown unlock something? Can Walker start to be the pillar the club believes he can be? Can he play a full season in the bigs without some weird roster manipulation? There are so many possible options. If Walker clicks, though, 2025 looks a lot brighter.
