Cardinals work to improve Jordan Walker’s outfield skills as team’s struggles continue

Between the jewel event trips across the ocean and the increasing simmer of likelihood that the next month could see a more pronounced talent auction than has been seen in St. Louis in a number of decades, the Cardinals still find themselves attempting to win baseball games.

To that end, and with an eye on what’s plagued them throughout the season, the adjusted defensive alignment in the outfield has brought the club to a new, old understanding of how to patch their shoddy pitching.

Catch the ball, and some of the stress relieves itself.

“We have to start making small adjustments that give our rotation the best chance to have more success,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “Part of that is putting guys in a position that they’re good at.

“When you look at balls above 20 degrees (of launch angle), and line drives and pop ups, we don’t do very well with those finding a glove. We’re doing, over the last two weeks, a much better job of balls getting caught. Like, a lot, lot better job.”

The last two weeks coincides roughly with the nearly-full-time move of Tommy Edman to centerfield, though Marmol did say he expects for Edman to get some game reps to stay sharp on the infield, such as Wednesday’s start at shortstop. When Lars Nootbaar was sent to the injured list with a back contusion, Edman was sent to fill in, and has done so more than admirably.

According to Statcast, heading into Wednesday’s action, Edman led all St. Louis outfielders this season with three outs above average despite ranking only fourth on the club in outfield fielding attempts. Nootbaar, who leads in attempts, ties with Dylan Carlson, third in attempts, with two each.

By contrast, at the bottom of the list is Jordan Walker, with a frightful total of negative seven. That’s largely the result of his being dragooned into learning the job on the job, having no professional time in the outfield prior to last year’s trade deadline.

Walker hits well enough that his bat is a necessity in the lineup for the Cardinals, who are not exactly an offensive dynamo otherwise. But the value tradeoff is real; despite an OPS approaching .850, Walker is still a negative value player, according to Baseball Reference because of his defensive shortcomings.

The designated hitter exists in the National League, and so a solution is readily apparent. But the Cardinals, with an eye firmly on Walker’s future, have thus far been reluctant to abandon all hopes he can be at least a neutral fielder in the short term.

“I think he needs the reps, which is difficult for the position that we’re in at the moment,” Marmol said when asked what steps Walker needs to take to improve in the field. “We’re trying to steady our outfield play and we have the guys to do that and still develop him as an outfielder. There’s a little bit of a, not perfect way of doing that.”

The usage of Walker during the team’s trip to London could very well be instructive for how the rest of the season might play out. Marmol pushed back on the notion Walker, Carlson and Nolan Gorman would form the three legs of a triangular platoon, but there is something to the likelihood that any two of the three can be in the lineup at once with either Gorman or Carlson handling the designated hitter’s slot.

‘There’s a learning curve’

Gorman crushes righties. Carlson mashes lefties. Brendan Donovan can shift easily between their two defensive spots. And on nights like Wednesday, when Houston’s Cristian Javier profiled as a tough matchup for Walker, he found himself with a night to get in a little extra work defensively but still be available as a bat off the bench.

It’s not a perfect deployment, and Walker is highly likely to mature into a competent outfielder. Before he gets there, though, the Cardinals seem to be seeking a happy medium that minimizes the risk of wayward baseballs skipping around the outfield.

“There’s so many areas that you’re constantly targeting with him that it’s just going to take time,” Marmol said. “There’s a learning curve, and that’s where we’re at. But it’s not one specific area as much as, like, there’s a lot to learn. But he’s got the baseball sense and determination to make those adjustments.”

More about Walker

The Cardinals saw that determination pay off once, by their estimate, during Walker’s month-long demotion to Triple-A ahead of a forecasted cold snap at the plate. When he arrived in Memphis and hit poorly, by their reckoning, it’s not because he was affected by being sent down — it was going to happen either way, and the attempt to work it out in the minors was part of protecting that development curve.

If the season continues along this path, it will be much easier for Walker to find time in the outfield grass free of consequences, allowed to learn without much concern about how it affects their competitive concerns.

The season isn’t there. Yet.