MLB Mailbag: Jordan Walker, Cubs, Guardians, Tigers, Riley

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.

1. Aaron Judge - 246 / 202
2. Kyle Tucker - 224 / 126
3. Kristian Campbell - 207 / 63
4. Tyler Soderstrom - 206 / 119
5. Jackson Merrill - 201 / 108
6. Spencer Torkelson - 193 / 112
7. Anthony Volpe - 192 / 75
8. Corbin Carroll - 181 / 136
9. Nolan Arenado - 178 / 75
10. Kyle Schwarber - 178 / 151
11. Lars Nootbaar - 171 / 90
12. Alex Bregman - 166 / 121
13. Fernando Tatis Jr. - 164 / 129
14. Sal Frelick - 162 / 110
15. Heliot Ramos - 159 / 103
16. Brendan Donovan - 157 / 115
17. Jose Altuve - 155 / 111
18. Teoscar Hernandez - 153 / 97
19. Eugenio Suarez - 152 / 123
20. Jazz Chisholm Jr. - 150 / 124
21. Jordan Westburg - 149 / 110
22. Shohei Ohtani - 148 / 174
23. Andres Gimenez - 147 / 60
24. Julio Rodriguez - 144 / 125
25. Nico Hoerner - 138 / 108
26. Jackson Chourio - 136 / 109
27. Seiya Suzuki - 135 / 121
28. Lawrence Butler - 134 / 93
29. Rafael Devers - 134 / 135
30. 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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