I’m going to tell you a story about a young prospect. An outfielder, no less. Tall and rangy. His most noticeable tool is his power, but he is not one-dimensional. He isn’t the greatest right-fielder anyone
has seen, but he is playable. He was what the Cardinals needed, really had since Matt Holliday aged out. A right-handed power hitter. But he struck out a bit much, didn’t walk very much and could be a bit stubborn about making requested adjustments.
I wonder how many of you think this is a story about Jordan Walker. It’s not. It is about another player, from whom we might find a cautionary tale. If you pay attention to the “lede art” you know this already.
This player ascended to AAA in his first season as a Cardinal prospect. Perhaps more tools than performance, he still showed a 121 wRC+ at AA and 115 wRC+ at AAA, so not bad. His K-rates were low 20’s, also not bad. I don’t know if I’d say he mastered AAA, but he did put up a 99 wRC+ in his first full year with 27 HR, so the power arrived, even if his overall offensive output was not overwhelming. This was his age 25 season, which is a bit old for a prospect, but not untenably so. Especially if you consider his back-story.
Along with that, however, the K-rate went up over 40%. That wasn’t going to translate to MLB well, so he was returned to AAA. In his 2nd full year at AAA, he dropped back to a 90 wRC+. He did hit 32 HR and reduced his K-rate to 30%. Separating noise from signal is hard with prospects, no? This was his age 26 season and he appeared to be going backwards, with wRC+ of 115 -> 99 – > 90 three years running. No small samples here, this was a trend.
During this season (2019), Adolis Garcia found himself behind Bader, Pham and Ozuna as the starting OFers, O’Neill as the emerging prospect and with Fowler as the case-hardened, contract laden 4th OF. Alongside, the Cardinals had 3 emerging prospects Jhon Torres, Dylan Carlson, Lane Thomas. But the roster logjam isn’t where I’m going here, just a snapshot of that moment in time, and where he stood. He was let go and caught on with the Texas Rangers. I do not believe this decision was made because they had to make a 40-man decision, as he’d been in the organization just 3 years. In retrospect, it kind of looks like they just gave up on him. In some sports, this is called an “unforced error”. The Garcia story continues, just not with St. Louis.
This outfielder effectively missed the 2020 season (due to COVID). And was again let go, although he re-signed a minor league contract with the same Rangers. By the 2021 season, he had worked his way back and had landed a spot with Texas major league team and he managed a 99 wRC+ with 31 HR and a not outlandish 31.2% K-rate. Not an overwhelming offensive profile, but not unplayable. To his good fortune, the Rangers had no competition for him. They lost 102 games that year, so they had bigger problems to solve. He was approaching 700 PAs in the MLB and beginning to show signs of being a good contributor, this being his age-28 season. The tools the Cardinals dreamed on in 2017-2018 began to coalesce in 2021-2022.
The next year, he added another 650 PAs and produced a 112 wRC+ in his age 29 season. He again lined up his HR and K-rate, both at 27 … 27 HR, 27.2% K-rate. Hard to complain about that. His defense was a bit above average, better in CF than in RF. He’d finally arrived. Texas lost 94 games that year, so runway was the one thing they had going for them. After 1300+ PAs, he had emerged. All with the benefit that Texas was willing (no other choice, really) to give him runway that can only come with a talent base that results in almost 200 losses in 2 years.
He went on to another level in 2023, hitting 39 HR and producing a 128 wRC+, while maintaining that 27% K-rate. Texas went to the World Series this season. He crossed the threshold of 10 WAR, establishing himself as a “notable” player. The Cardinals missed on this guy. So did everyone else who passed on him twice when he was on the waiver wire or an MiLB free agent. In retrospect, we see the Cardinals evaluation wasn’t that off. Five of the OFers in front of Garcia were/are notable players in their own right, with greater total career WAR.
Of course, Father Time is undefeated. Turning 30 and passing his peak years, plus injuries, have returned Garcia to replacement level the last two years. Late emergence tends to limit peak production. Funny how that works.
One view can be the Cardinals gave up on him too soon. Of course, they were never going to give him 1200 PAs to establish himself while they were trying to win in their Arenado/Goldy window. But a good draft and development system can’t close the door and give up on prospects too soon. All that is water under bridge. I’m not going to yowl about Fowler and his misfit contract. Even without it, Garcia probably doesn’t get his shot here. So be it. Ancient history. But what I do want to talk about is … can they learn a lesson here that helps guide the next decisions with the next prospects? Jordan Walker might come to mind here, for some folks at least.
Fast forward to today
When you look at Jordan Walker at age 23, with less than 1,000 MLB PAs, recognize that he is younger than Garcia was when Garcia joined the organization. He is 5 years younger than Garcia’s first decent season. Walker may well take that long (or close to it) to establish himself. I’m not saying Adolis Garcia and Jordan Walker are perfect comps, but I do think that Adolis’ story can help us understand that we get tired of waiting for emergence and break-through, sometimes long before it does.
I think most everyone agrees Walker was promoted way too soon and generally handled poorly. This is a reflection of poor management decision(s), not a poor player, which is a whole different story better written 5-10 years from now. Some seem to want to give up on Walker and go seek some other prospect to admire or acquire a veteran OFer that will effectively block him (I think of this as Fowler Redux). This makes me wonder if people who advocate this are simply asking to repeat the same process that cost the Cardinals a “notable” contributor in Garcia. Only this time, emergence could occur well before that age-29 season and you could end up with a player with quite a bit better career as he has yet to approach, much less pass through his peak years (26-30).
In my simple mind, what needs to happen with Jordan Walker is that he needs to spend 2026 in AAA, until he has mastered it (or not). I get whole notion that he needs to see the pitches to adjust to them and those occur mostly at the MLB level. if he had the tools to succeed at AAA, which he really hasn’t displayed yet, then I’d better understand. To me, if he can’t hit AAA pitching, there seems little point in exposing him to the MLB side. If he succeeds at AAA, he can return to St. Louis and then be given runway that he might be actually prepared to take off from. And then we’ll know. Not yet, not him.
