St. Louis Cardinals v Houston Astros | Rich Storry/GettyImages

With Opening Day right around the corner, teams across the league are putting the finishing touches on their 26-man rosters to start the season. For the St. Louis Cardinals, that process should represent something of a changing of the guard: After two straight seasons falling short of October and with president John Mozeliak largely sitting on his hands during his final offseason at the wheel, everyone seems resigned to 2025 being a retooling year, an opportunity to shed some dead weight and give younger pieces a chance to stake their claim to a job moving forward.

And in some ways, that’s played out. Take center field, for example: St. Louis has already announced that former top prospect Victor Scott II will be the team’s starter on Opening Day, a much-deserved show of faith despite the fact that he flopped in his first taste of the Majors last year. But while the team is willing to take a leap of faith in the name of building for the future in some cases, in the case of arguably the most important player on the entire roster they’re stuck in the same old rut.

Cardinals Opening Day roster decision raises same old questions about Jordan Walker

Maybe that’s hyperbole, but it really does feel like outfielder Jordan Walker holds the key to the next era of Cardinals baseball. It wasn’t too long ago that he was one of the consensus best prospects in the entire sport, one who more than held his own while slashing .276/.342/.445 over 117 games as a rookie. St. Louis still has an assembly of interesting, talented players; what it needs is a star, someone to orient itself around as the likes of Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras and others age out, and Walker remains by far the best bet to become one.

Which is why it’s so frustrating that the team has been unable to stop jerking him around over the last couple of years. Yes, Walker regressed badly at the plate last season, falling off a cliff in just about every metric. But the team itself did him no favors, shuttling him from Triple-A and back without any clear path forward and deciding to platoon him just months after pledging that he would be an everyday player.

And while you’d think that this year, of all years, would afford Walker the longest possible leash, it remains unclear whether that will actually be the case. The Cardinals’ fourth outfielder on Opening Day would appear to be Michael Siani, a non-prospect who’s never been able to hit at the Major League level but has nonetheless become one of Oli Marmol’s favorite players because of his outstanding defensive ability. Walker is locked into the team’s starting lineup, but he needs as many reps both in the field and at the plate as he possibly can, and Siani’s presence on the roster gives Marmol every excuse he needs to pull Walker out of the lineup in the seventh or eighth inning as a defensive replacement.

Which would be fantastically short-sighted. Again, St. Louis needs Walker to develop into an All-Star-caliber player. Sure, his defense in right field is rough right now, but that will only get better with practice; and besides, pulling him late in games will deprive of him at-bats in clutch situations, a baffling way to approach the development of a hitter who needs as many opportunities as possible to regain his confidence.

Maybe this is all an overreaction, and the Cardinals will give Walker ample time to sink or swim. But it feels like we’ve seen this movie before, and Cardinals fans won’t love how it ends.