Reader Mailbag, Part 1: The left field conundrum, when to believe in Jordan Walker, JJ Wetherholt extension talk, the bullpen, and more
Readers have questions, writer has answers -- some of them possibly correct and coherent
You responded to the recent call for mailbag questions with zeal and abundance, so as is usually the case I’ll be breaking up my replies into two episodes. The first one starts now.
Mark N writes:
What to do about LF?
Church seems hugely overmatched at the plate while playing good defense. While wins may be less important in 2026, being hapless at the plate can’t be helping him in the long run. There have to be a couple options other than ‘wait for Noot’. Maybe we started to see that last night.
Beyond that, for the pen, what metrics may give a hopeful glimpse across pitchers other than RO’B? It’s been...suboptimal more than not.
I’m not particularly high on Church, as I’m just not sure a 25-year-old who slugged under .400 in the minors with an ISO of 116 is going to handle big-league pitching at an adequate level. Speaking of which, Church has put up basement-level production in the majors, albeit across a very small sample. As is always the case with any of my pessimistic assessments, I’d love to be wrong, but he seems like a player who’ll top out at fourth/fifth outfielder. I’m a bit more sanguine about Thomas Saggese. He’s significantly younger than Church, and he showed much more power -- raw and in-game -- than Church did in the minors (he even popped up on a couple of top-100 lists prior to the 2024 season). Saggese has also at least approached adequacy in the majors over the last two seasons despite erratic playing time. My preference while Lars Nootbaar continues to recover from bilateral heel surgery is to give Saggese regular run in left field for the time being. I think his blend of contact and gap pop has the potential to translate, so let’s see what he can do as a near-daily presence in the lineup for a few weeks.
For what it’s worth, Grapefruit League hero Nelson Velázquez is struggling badly at Memphis, and Joshua Báez at that same rung has an OPS of .623 through nine games and is thus not forcing the case for a call-up right now.
As for your second question, let’s fold in some other bullpen-related contributions.
Mark B writes:
What is your take on Chaim’s bullpen construction? I’ve been disappointed so far, very inconsistent.
Consistency for the offence as these young hitters find their way. Same thing goes for the starting pitching, young guys need to find their way.
But it seems to me that the bullpen is an area where you can build some consistency, a GM picks up pieces every year. Consistency for the starting pitchers so games can be held and consistency for the offence so they can feel the games are always within striking distance to win the game. Which would build build confidence for both starters and hitters.
Keith writes:
I know, I know it’s early! there’s only 2-3 guys in the bullpen that I think have Major league “stuff”. The others, don’t belong. They don’t pass the eye test and their career numbers are awful. Particularly Soriano, Stanek, and Roycroft. Are they just occupying spots on the roster until some of the younger guys throw a few innings in AAA and AAA? Not only is the bullpen terrible, it’s demoralizing. How long do they give these guys?
On the bullpen front, sample size rules all at this early juncture, and that’s most especially the case with relievers, who traffic in small samples even across full seasons. That’s the main thing. Otherwise, if you remove Chris Roycroft (optioned to Triple-A) and Matt Pushard (on the injured list) from the mix, then you get a bullpen ERA of 4.26 on the season. That’s not good by any means, but it’s also not “galling disaster” territory. As well, Matt Svanson looked much better during his most recent appearance in the series finale against the Nats. For what it’s worth, Cardinal relievers grade out as slightly better than the mean when it comes to Stuff+ so far in 2026.
At individual level, Riley O’Brien has lockdown stuff, and George Soriano and his new hard changeup may be in line for leverage innings. JoJo Romero remains a reliable lefty, and I’m still bullish on Svanson moving forward. I expect Ryne Stanek will be a useful bat-misser, albeit with occasional control issues. The Cardinals do have a pair of “churn” spots since Gordon Graceffo and Svanson still have minor league options remaining, so keep an eye on high-minors relief arms like Luis Gastelum (unfortunately Packy Naughton, who may have been the beneficiary of the next bullpen move, may have suffered another serious arm injury) and maybe Tink Hence should he recoup some velocity and flash better command.
I agree that assembling a capable bullpen is a fundamental test of a front office that should be easily passed as such things go. I’ll return to the early date on the calendar, as unsatisfying as such an answer is. Some relievers were bedeviled by lucky contact early on, and single outings can blow up a stat line this early. On that latter point, Stanek before he got bombed on Monday had a 1.80 ERA and 3.39 FIP for the season. I think “frustrated but not yet gravely concerned” is the sensible approach to the bullpen at this early hour. Give it some time before we etch our appraisals in granite.
Anthony writes:
Over/under 1.5 extensions for players currently in the Cardinals organization by November 30th of this year?
I’ll take the under and say JJ Wetherholt and the club make a mutual long-term commitment at some point during the 2026 season. Speaking of which ...
Kyle writes:
Did Chaim and Dewitt miss their window for a reasonable extension for JJ? Or is his situation different enough than the other recent extension signees (JJ is years older and only plays 2B) that they can still lock him up for a price that BD2 will play ball with?
No, I don’t think so. I’m not sure about ownership’s appetite for a nine-figure extension in light of the very real concerns about revenue streams right now, but I can’t imagine any kind of formerly open window has closed.
For the sake of discussion, let’s assume it takes a couple of months of talks for Wetherholt and the Cardinals to come to an agreement. Over the past half-decade or so, a number of players have signed long-term extensions that bought out multiple free agent years while those players had at least 50 days of MLB service time but less than one full year. Those include Julio Rodríguez of the Mariners (12 years, $210 million), the disgraced Wander Franco of the Rays (11 years, $182 million), Roman Anthony of the Red Sox (eight years, $130 million), and Michael Harris II of the Braves (eight years, $72 million). As well, Corbin Carroll of the D-backs inked an eight-year, $111 million deal when he had 38 days of MLB service time. That’s a lot of examples just from fairly recent history. Anecdotally at least, players seem increasingly willing to commit to such arrangements, and the looming lockout probably makes something more likely on both sides. I don’t think it’s too late at all, and my barely informed guess is that they forge an agreement.
Shaun writes:
Does Jordan Walker need to be arrested on charges of murdering that baseball?
Not sure which of his MLB-leading five home runs you’re referring to. Could it be this one, the 459-foot grand slam?
That baseball made the mistake of agreeing to be pitched in the direction of Mr. Walker and his thundersome implement. Justifiable homicide.
Speaking of our beloved cloutsman ...
Brian writes:
When can we start buying in to Jordan Walker’s hot start? Obviously I’m excited by his approach and his results so far. But it’s just 9 games, and it’s not like he hasn’t had killer 9-game stretches in the past. In fact, every season of his career he’s had great 9-game stretches - Aug-Sept 2023 - .500/.529/1.000 with 4 homers and only 7 K’s in 34 PA’s Sept 2024 - .250/.323/.643 with 3 homers and only 8 K’s in 31 PA’s May 2025 - .345/.367/.586 (although with LOTS of strikeouts) So do we need to see more from him before we start getting truly excited? Or if we drill down are we seeing something new from him?
Very glad someone asked about the leading sub-plot of the season so far, and this one merits close exploration. You’re right about those similar stretches, and that kind of thing is worth bearing in mind as Walker and our expectations for him move forward.
At this writing, he’s 49 plate appearances into what is, for him, a most critical season. That’s a tiny sample, to point out the obvious and to build off the points you made above. That said, we’re working our way toward the juncture at which certain indicators start to mean something -- not everything, but something.
K% starts to stabilize at 60 plate appearances, and Walker has made major strides in this regard. His K% is still high at 28.6%, but that’s an improvement over 2025, when he struck out in 31.8% of his plate appearances. It’s even better relative to the league average mark, which is 23.3% so far in 2026 versus 22.2% last year. Walker has made the biggest strides when it comes to his chase rate -- or how often he swings at pitches outside the strike zone -- which is down from 34.1% last year to 28.0% thus far in 2026. Chase rate isn’t in that stabilization study linked above, but presumably it’s one of the earlier stabilizers given its strong relationship to K%.
At the same time, his swing rate on pitches in the zone is up from 66.9% last year to 71.9% this year. Walk rate doesn’t stabilize until 120 plate appearances or thereabouts, but let’s note Walker is a walker in 10.2% of his PAs this year, which is up sharply from his 2025 walk rate of 7.3%. He has yet to be walked intentionally in 2026, whereas one of his 41 walks from a season ago was an IBB. This all paints a picture of increasing strike zone awareness and pitch recognition. Along similar lines, Walker’s chase rate on right-handed sliders and sweepers — a bete noire of his — is down modestly from 32.9% in 2025 to 30.4% in 2026. His overall chase rate on outside pitches from right-handers — also a problem in recent years — is down from 24.6% to 20.0% from last season to this.
We know that quality of contact also becomes meaningful pretty early, and, well, the relevant portions of Walker’s Baseball Savant page is awash in pleasing red:
Look, we all know Walker can wreck the baseball, but an average exit velo of 97.4 mph is hard to fathom. Making such a leap in barrel rate -- from 10.9% in 2025 to 26.7% (!) this year -- is similarly remarkable. Walker’s contact and chase issues were just one of his prior shortcomings. Elevating the ball so as to make full use of you high-level exit velos was the other. The leap in barrel rate is encouraging on that front. Circling back to Russell Carleton’s stabilization work once more, ground-ball percentage starts to mean something at around 80 balls in play. Going into the Red Sox series, Walker is at 25 balls in play for the season, so it’ll be a while yet. Still, let’s note that Walker’s ground-ball rate is at 36.7%. That’s versus a 2025 mark of 47.5%. That’s also versus a league-average GB% of 44.2 this year. If he’s able to do anything close to this level of ungodly damage on contact on a sustainable basis, then you can more than live with a K rate of 30% or so.
Again, all of this is huge early progress. I’m not going to flatly declare he’s fixed and found his hoped-for level because, yes, it’s the second week of April. However, almost everything about his current profile is encouraging, and if he’s still doing most of this -- especially at the level of those plate discipline indicators and barrel rate -- by, say, 100 plate appearances or so, then we can advance to the next phase of our belief in him.
OK, that’ll do it for this time. Back soon with the rest of your mailbag contributions.