This week's mailbag gets into Jordan Walker's hot start, the Cubs' approach to Cade Horton's season-ending injury, the future of the Guardians, and slow starts for the Tigers as well as Braves third baseman Austin Riley.
Sam asks:
I know it way too early to ask this question I cannot help it. Jordan Walker has a 183 wRC+ and is on pace for 39 HRs is he has 456 ABs (ZIPS AB projection). He will cool off a bit—at least. But say he has finally arrived (met his potential, however you want to call it) and settles into being a 130-135 wRC+ and 30-35 HR hitter, how do you think that impacts the Cardinals' short and long term outlook with their rebuild?
Walker, 24 in May, sits at a 181 wRC+ through 44 plate appearances after hitting a solo home run in five trips to the plate Tuesday at Nationals Park.
I pulled up the wRC+ leaderboard last year through April 6th, with a minimum of 40 plate appearances. Here's a list of the top 20, first showing their wRC+ through April 6th and then showing what it was for that player for the rest of the season.
- Aaron Judge - 246 / 202
- Kyle Tucker - 224 / 126
- Kristian Campbell - 207 / 63
- Tyler Soderstrom - 206 / 119
- Jackson Merrill - 201 / 108
- Spencer Torkelson - 193 / 112
- Anthony Volpe - 192 / 75
- Corbin Carroll - 181 / 136
- Nolan Arenado - 178 / 75
- Kyle Schwarber - 178 / 151
- Lars Nootbaar - 171 / 90
- Alex Bregman - 166 / 121
- Fernando Tatis Jr. - 164 / 129
- Sal Frelick - 162 / 110
- Heliot Ramos - 159 / 103
- Brendan Donovan - 157 / 115
- Jose Altuve - 155 / 111
- Teoscar Hernandez - 153 / 97
- Eugenio Suarez - 152 / 123
- Jazz Chisholm Jr. - 150 / 124
- Jordan Westburg - 149 / 110
- Shohei Ohtani - 148 / 174
- Andres Gimenez - 147 / 60
- Julio Rodriguez - 144 / 125
- Nico Hoerner - 138 / 108
- Jackson Chourio - 136 / 109
- Seiya Suzuki - 135 / 121
- Lawrence Butler - 134 / 93
- Rafael Devers - 134 / 135
- Brice Turang - 134 / 123
Walker came into the 2026 season with 1,039 Major League plate appearances and an 89 wRC+. Every player is different, but the best comp here might be Torkelson, even though the latter had a little more experience and success in his career to that point. But I'd say the range of rest-of-season outcomes on Walker remains very wide: this could be nothing, or a full breakout. Sorry, the truth is often boring.
I also think it's worth asking whether Walker has hit like this in the Majors before. For that, we use the Stathead Span Finder. I'm not a huge OPS guy, but that's probably the best "overall offense" stat in this tool. Walker's OPS is currently 1.014, spanning 11 games and 44 PA. He has had a couple of streaks at least this good, basically in June and August of his 2023 rookie season:
- 6-6-23 to 6-18-23: Walker hit .395/.477/.789 (1.267 OPS) with 4 HR in 44 PA
- 8-22-23 to 9-5-23: Walker hit .432/.488/.838 (1.326 OPS) in 4 HR in 43 PA
Even in his lousy 2025 season, Walker had a 43-PA July run where he hit .342/.419/.500 (.919 OPS) over 43 PA, though he did not homer during that streak.
What kind of evidence is on the breakout side of the ledger?
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Kristian Campbell??
So Sam, seems to be ready to anoint Walker as a “Super Star” after very good performance in just 44 at bats…maybe he should wait a bit to see if his performance has actually improved and turned the corner towards being a star player…..
Kyle Tucker isn’t getting paid like a guy who put up a 126 OPS+ after April 7th last year.
Hard to foresee long range trends when ballplayers’ faces are severely reddened and wind-chapped in these 28-37 degree game temps. It’s survival mode.
Ski-Mitten Baseball is not optimal except maybe when running the bags. Do not categorize this as an excuse, mind you. No interest in that discussion.
This brutal winter weather is the reason why these games mean so little, except acknowledging that they count while being extremely glad that I did not pay $500 to sit in these tundra tussles.
Does anyone know why as a current member, I am never able to get past the login prompt to see this material ???
Current member as in paid member? If so, no idea.
How long ago did you sign up
You don’t have the gold TR icon, which typically indicates a paid subscriber.
Walker will cool down, and considerably. Remember, around this time last year Wilmer Flores (SF) led the NL in homers with eight bombs. Does the name Tuffy Rhodes ring a bell? Bregman gonna hit one-something all year? Doubtful. Every year there are anomalies with early season stats. As for Walker, yes he
will cool down. However, there’s a degree of pedigree with him in that he’s performed well before (rookie season), so in a nutshell I think he’s gonna have a productive campaign if he stays healthy. Not gonna get a lot of help in that St. Louis line up in terms of not being pitched around if he remains hot. Opposing pitchers will just walk him and take their chances with the likes of Gorman, Winn, Scott et al.
Even when he does cool down, this start is good for his confidence. Talent is there. I just think that they screwed up his development by rushing him to the majors. Yes I know he’s approaching 1000 ABs but he had to learn a new position on the fly and is still only 23.
The data in the chart is interesting. Of the 30 players listed, only two had a higher wRC+ for the rest of the season than in the first weeks: Ohtani and Devers (by just one point). The good news is that most (22) of the 30 posted above league average wRC+ for the rest of the season.
I think the detailed responses in this Mailbag Q&A are amazingly thorough. Thanks for being that attentive.