Cards notebook: Here’s to Walt Jocketty; Jordan Walker's ailing bat; Victor Scott II’s hidden skill; the Cubs' easy road ahead

Let's talk about a bunch of stuff, shall we?

The trade is an elemental part of the sport of the sport of baseball. For fans, it can go all the way back to trading cards – it’s right there in the name – and proceed through tabletop and computer simulations and video games to armchair decision-making for the team that has your heart. For the actual decision-maker, the trade is the surest test of skill and wisdom. I’ll give you this, you give me that, and we’ll see who’s right. Yes, signing free agents requires a high level of acumen, but often it’s an exercise in the obvious – of course you sign Shohei Ohtani if the owner above you will pay the going rates. The trade, though, usually involves locking eyes with an enemy exec and getting that exec to agree to terms while secretly thinking he got the better of you. Few were as good at this foundational skill as former Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty, who recently passed at the age of 74.

Jocketty’s swap-crafting landed the Cardinals, among others, prominent names like – deep breath – Adam Wainwright, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Jim Edmonds, Darryl Kile, Edgar Renteria, Larry Walker, Woody Williams, Will Clark, Todd Stottlemyre, Fernandos Tatis and Vina, and others. This is to say nothing of the fact that Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, and J.D. Drew were drafted on Jocketty’s watch. It also doesn’t get into his canny free-agent signings of talents like Chris Carpenter, Andy Benes, David Eckstein, Chris Carpenter, and . . . Tony La Russa. And regardless of your current level of fatigue insofar as the name about to be typed is concerned, he also brought John Mozeliak into the fold. Not surprisingly, the Cardinals won often under Jocketty’s leadership, including a World Series title in 2006 (their first in almost a quarter-century), and the Jocketty-era successes came after what qualifies as a competitive famine by franchise historical standards.

All of this is to say Jocketty was a tremendous “operator,” to invoke a beloved Bill Veeck term, and a towering figure in franchise history. I remain baffled that it took so long to select him to the Cardinals Hall of Fame, and I’m sorry he died before he could put on that red jacket and be plentifully adored by the Busch Stadium crowd.

Requiescat in pace, Mr. Jocketty.

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Jordan Walker’s progress in the field has been one of the pleasant surprises of the 2025 season to date. He looks much more assured out there, much more willing to tap into his solidly above-average speed, and much more able to trust his first step. The numbers back up these perceptions, and he may have already turned himself into an above-average right fielder on a long-term basis. The bat, though, is another matter.

Walker’s carrying tool has yet to carry much in his MLB career to date. I have no doubt the Cardinals’ poor handling of Walker in 2023 and 2024 contributed to this, but he’s seen regular duty in 2025 and thus far the results aren’t there. On the positive side, his bat speed is truly elite, and his exit velocities and hard-hit rate are impressive. While he’s thus far cut down on the ground-ball rates that bedeviled him in the past, he’s declined in his capacity to pull the ball.

Most hitters these days are looking to do damage in the air to the pull side, and that’s led to an emphasis on the percentage of batted balls that check those two boxes. Thanks largely to his inability to pull the ball this season, Walker’s pull-in-the-air rate in 2025 is down to a career-worst 10.1%. That puts him near the bottom of the league. There is, however, a current model for producing at a high level despite such a seemingly undesirable hitting profile. That’s James Wood of the Nationals, another tall, long-levered corner outfielder who’s 22 years of age, who was drafted out of a sunbelt high school with a high-ish pick, and who developed into a premium prospect. Going deeper, each has a fast bat, each hits the ball hard, and each rarely hits the ball in the air to the pull side. In Wood’s case, his pull-air rate is all the way down at 5.1%, or roughly half of Walker’s. None of that, though, has prevented Wood from being one of the league’s most productive hitters. Meantime, Walker has been one of the least productive hitters in that same cohort.

So what’s the difference? Besides being, you know, completely different human beings, Wood this season is doing much more damage on contact than Walker is, and likely that flows from Wood’s superior plate discipline and ability to recognize and handle spin. Consider: