Well, if anything, his hands are in good hands.
“Willie (McGee) has been really good ... helping me along the way,” said Jordan Walker, when asked about learning the outfield.
And, yes, the famous Cardinals coach won three Gold Gloves. But with Walker’s defense, Willie has quite a lot on his hands.
Entering Monday, only one right fielder in all of baseball ranked lower in defensive runs saved than Walker (who does has a smaller sample size than some others). And, in the past couple days, Walker has been in left field — where struggles with routes and decision-making have been discouragingly conspicuous.
Now, in a normal Cardinals season, this wouldn’t be a huge deal. The Cardinals generally win a lot in the regular season — the postseason is another story — so they could hide the hitting phenom’s defense under the rug. But the 2023 Cardinals are in last place. They need every edge. And Walker’s defense is playing a part in losses.
“It’s definitely tough, I’m not used to being this far away from the ball,” said the rookie Walker, 21, a former infielder. “I’m still really working hard to where I want to be — I want to be that elite defender. And I’ve got a long way to go. But it’s definitely something I’m working at, getting a little bit better every single day.”
But here’s the thing. While Walker’s defensive mistakes are glaring, almost every Cardinal has lost some defensive sharpness. Sometimes, it alters key innings — recently, there has been a tardy Nolan Arenado double-clutch throw to first ... and an errant Paul DeJong throw to home ... and the Nolan Gorman offline cut-off throw. Other times, a defensive mistake is subtle or doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Regardless, there is a decay in the defense here in St. Louis, where the Cardinals are known for gloves of gold.
They have slipped into the realm of slipshod. Is defense the Cardinals’ only problem? Of course not. Is defense something that shouldn’t be a problem? Of course.
Yet, the Cardinals are 27th — 27th! — in defensive runs saved (DRS), per Sports Info Solutions, coming in at minus-21. Only the Red Sox, A’s and Nationals are worse. Per FanGraphs, they’re 23rd in Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) and 18th in defensive rating. And while these acronyms might not mean anything to you, the point is — their defense is offensive.
“It hasn’t been what we want it to be,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said from his office before Monday’s game against the San Francisco Giants at Busch Stadium. “And it hasn’t been with the personnel that we thought would be out there. So it depends how you want to look at it. There was a time where the starting outfield of Tyler O’Neill, (Lars) Nootbaar and (Dylan) Carlson were all on the injured list. That’s a much different defensive team than what we had out there at the time. So you’re going to see a drop off in numbers. That’s how it works. So to compare it to last year would just be for the sake of showing that it hasn’t been good — but it doesn’t make it meaningless.”
Sure, at times, it’s like the Cardinals have a bunch of designated hitters wedged into their defense, be it Walker or Alec Burleson or Gorman.
But check this out regarding even the most sure-handed defensive players. The third baseman Arenado, for instance, has a minus-0.9 defensive rating on FanGraphs. The lowest he’s ever had in his career? It’s a plus-4.8. The shortstop Paul DeJong is at plus-3.8, his lowest in a normal-length regular season since 2018 (and DeJong’s plus-3.8 is actually the highest on the Cards this season).
Tommy Edman and Brendan Donovan are the saving graces, saving runs at every position they play.
Alas, they can only play one position at a time.
This is all happening under Marmol’s watch, but it’s also fair to point out that Marmol and his staff diligently dedicate much of spring training — and pregame practice — to defense.
And, as mentioned in this column space last week, one of the main problems with the Cardinals’ problem is the Cardinals themselves — the players are not executing and focusing at a level of consistency and urgency that leads to winning.
“Defensively,” Marmol said, “(it’s) being able to not have to record more outs than the three that you’re supposed to.”
And of all the stats, perhaps this is the most telling. It comes from Brandon Kiley of WXOS (101.1 FM).
So, baseball-reference.com tracks defensive efficiency — which is, basically, converting balls in play into outs. The Cardinals are the worst in baseball, at .664. Not only that, but since 2000, only six times have a team put up a lower defensive efficiency percentage than the 2023 Cardinals.
As for Walker, the Cardinals need his bat in the lineup. Can he DH? Maybe when Nootbaar and O’Neill return from the injury list. But as of now, he’s out there in the outfield, for better or worse.
“There’s a certain amount of effort and a mentality that goes with (preparation) and Jordan’s doing a nice job of taking to it,” Marmol said. “But there’s no way of speeding that up. ... He is going out early and getting the extra work, but that’s the process. It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight. He’s going to continue to get better from the more read he gets in games.”
