Jordan

Walker

After a little two-week break, Walker is back hitting again the last five games, going 11-for-23 with two homers, 11 RBI and a couple of steals. He’s probably not the superstar he was the first two weeks of the season, but it looks like he’s improved enough to remain a fine fantasy contributor.

Walker continues to be one of the hottest hitters in the Cardinals’ lineup. The 23-year-old got things started with a single in the first inning and was eventually driven in thanks to a Nolan Gorman home run, and then doubled to drive home Alec Burleson and Ivan Herrera in the seventh inning to put the Cards up 6-2. Walker has now hit safely in four-straight games and is slashing a blistering .407/.469/.593 over his last seven games. After a slow start to his career, Walker continues to show the promise that made him a top prospect.

It was part of a two-hit, three-RBI game for the 23-year-old. Walker’s homer came off Paul Skenes in the first inning, just a few batters after JJ Wetherholt took him deep. Walker hadn’t homered since April 13, and the strikeouts had been piling up lately, so this is a promising development. The swing-and-miss (plus his groundball rate) will continue to be what fantasy managers should track, since the bat speed and raw power are proven to play against major league pitching.

Walker had a pretty quiet two series against the Guardians and Astros last week, but he’s still getting a knock every day; he’s now hit in 16 straight, though the last six of those have all been one-hit games. Of course, he’ll continue to fade some from his current .306/.372/.635 line, but there’s still good reason for fantasy leaguers to be optimistic going forward, one being that he’s now 4-for-4 stealing bases.

It comes in a losing effort, but it’s another impressive outing for Walker. His eighth homer of the season came in the sixth inning off Gavin Williams, and it would have left every park in baseball according to Baseball Savant with an exit velocity of 107.6 mph. Yes the sample is small, and yes, Walker’s previous struggles can’t completely be ignored, but this is a 23-year-old with some of thes best bat-speed in the sport who has flashes his unreal talent even in his poor campaigns. This has been fun to watch. The question is if he can be a semblance of this player for the rest of 2026/beyond.

This is pretty ridiculous now. Walker has more homers in 15 games this year than he did in 51 games in 2024 (five) and 111 games last season (six). He’s still striking out plenty, so the early .327 average isn’t going to stick around. Still, he seems like a different player; he’s always tended to make hard contract, but now that hard contact is turning into liners and big flies instead of grounders to short.

It was a true three-outcome game for Walker, who walked once, struck out twice, and hit a 429-foot home run off Garrett Whitlock that left the bat at 109.6 mph. Walker has all kinds of power and is now up to six home runs on the season. There remain some swing-and-miss concerns in his game, but he put in plenty of work to fix his swing path and overall hitting mechanics this offseason, and something seems to have clicked. If you can get a dependable, high-end fantasy contributor in a trade for him, you can feel free to shop Walker, but this is not some ticking time bomb that you need to get away from. There is legitimate breakout potential.

Walker smacked a one-out single off of Connelly Early in the third inning but wound up stranded on second base. He then started the go-ahead rally with a one-out single off of Zack Kelly in the fifth and raced around to score on an RBI single by Thomas Saggese. With his two-hit attack, the 23-year-old former top prospect is now slashing a healthy .313/.377/.667 with five homers, 12 RBI and a stolen base in 53 plate appearances to start the 2026 season.

There is absolutely no stopping Walker right now. He launched a hanging slider from Brad Lord over the center field fence to push his home run total up to six on the season. That’s tied for the league-lead as of Wednesday afternoon and is just one shy of the six he hit in 111 games all of last season. This is far and away the most sustained power he’s ever had. On top of that, his swing decisions have trended way up and there seems to be a meaningful adjustment to his bat path that’s finally allowed him to lift that ball. Remember, he’s still only just 23 years old. It’s wheels up for Walker.

Walker has been one of the biggest disappointments in fantasy baseball — much of that due to having an outrageous amount of hype, deserved though it might have been — but the breakout season just might be coming. Yes, we know there’s still 150-plus games left to go. Walker hit his fourth homer of the season, and he’s now up to 11 RBI in 11 games with an OPS of 1.014. It’s understandable why some may be skeptical, but it’s never been a question of talent with Walker. He appears to finally be applying that talent at the highest level.