Jordan Walker won the Home Run Derby in spectacular fashion on Monday night, more than doubling his salary for this season after he hammered six straight home runs to beat hometown hero Kyle Schwarber in the final round. Then, he made his first All-Star appearance a day later. It was a special start to the week for the St. Louis Cardinals' 24-year-old superstar.
A year ago, however, many wondered if Walker was running out of time to claim a spot in the Cardinals' lineup. He finished the 2025 campaign with an abysmal .584 OPS, with six home runs in 363 at-bats. So far this season, he's up to 22 homers and an NL-leading 72 RBI, with an .884 OPS and 148 OPS+. The switch has flipped. Walker made his MLB debut in 2023 and suffered for multiple years under the weight of expectation. Once considered a bust, he's now St. Louis' greatest success story. These underperforming youngsters could follow in his footsteps:
RHP Andrew Painter, Philadelphia Phillies
Too soon? Probably. Andrew Painter has 14 MLB appearances under his belt, and he's 23 years old. So many pitchers bomb in year one, only to turn it around on a fairly quick timeline. Patience is not necessarily a virtue often found in the city of Philadelphia, however. At least not among sports fans. Talk to a Phillies fan on the ground, and the outlook with Painter is extremely bleak.
It's not difficult to understand the pessimism. Painter put up a 7.06 ERA and 1.66 WHIP across 65.0 innings before Philadelphia yanked the plug and sent him back to Triple-A. Painter hasn't exactly turned it around in the minors either. Any hope for a swift recall and a second-half breakthrough is dead in the water.
Painter's fastball, once his signature weapon, was zapped of all life by Tommy John surgery. It was flat and imminently hittable all season. The velocity is fine, but it's not where it was a couple years ago. If his top offering in a meatball, it will be hard for Painter to succeed.
That said, it's worth preaching patience here. He still finished his first big league stint with a healthy 35.2 percent hard-hit rate, in MLB's 71st percentile. The fastball was basically an automatic hit, but opponents hit .195 against his split-finger. Opponents don't hit his slider very hard. The off-speed stuff is damn good. If Painter can get his fastball up to speed with more time removed from elbow surgery, don't be shocked when it all comes together and he looks like the once-promised ace Philly fans expected.
OF Dylan Crews, Washington Nationals
Dylan Crews finished 2024 as MLB Pipeline's No. 7 overall prospect. Midway through his third go-around with the Nationals, however, Crews has only regressed from the .641 OPS and 88 OPS+ he posted in 31 games as a rookie. So far this season, he's at six homers with a .613 OPS and a modest 0.1 fWAR.
Year three is generally when the panic starts to set in with former top prospects. Crews was hailed as a five-tool, 60-grade prospect. A true difference-maker. So far it hasn't really come together. Still, he's 24 years old. There's so much time left, and the underlying metrics point to room for growth.
Crews, at the very worst, offers a solid baseline: he's an elite defender across multiple outfield positions, and he's incredibly fast, able to cover ground in the field and burn rubber on the bases. The Nats are just waiting for his bat to come to life. And while Crews has found power hard to come by this season, he generates solid exit velocities (90.5 MPH on average) and his expected slugging (.427) sits notably higher than his current slugging percentage (.343), which means we can expect positive regression over the course of this season alone.
The tools are there. He gets the bat through the zone quickly, and he's a major athlete. If Crews can fine-tune his approach, trade a few strikeouts for walks, and really sit on pitches in the zone, he's going to catch on eventually.
INF Coby Mayo, Baltimore Orioles
Coby Mayo was part of a youth movement in Baltimore that hasn't really had the return on investment that Orioles fans expected. Gunnar Henderson is slumping. Jackson Holliday is painfully average. Adley Rutschman is still very good, but he's not the transformational superstar Baltimore thought it had three years ago. Henderson will be fine, but how exactly the O's move forward from this low point in recent franchise history remains to be seen.
Mayo was a hot commodity in trade rumors last offseason. There was a fear that he wouldn't find a spot in the lineup, with those fears now partially realized. Mayo is still getting plenty of reps, but he's not an everyday starter. At 24 years old, in his second full MLB season, it's not great when everyday at-bats are no longer guaranteed.
The book on Mayo as a prospect has held up in the majors, for better and for worse. He has always struck out far too often. That is the crux of the issue, and the reason Baltimore can't seem to trust him. Mayo has an incredibly fast, natural swing and generates a ton of raw power, but he can't connect with the barrel frequently enough. He has 12 homers in 223 at-bats, a solid number, but his .659 OPS and 83 OPS+ — with severe negative impact as a defender at third base — makes him impossible to trust.
But again, I preach the word 'patience.' Mayo is still very young, and it's hard enough to find 24-year-olds who can hit the ball as hard as he can. His 50.0 percent hard-hit rate sits in MLB's 89th percentile, with a 92.3 MPH average exit velocity. He can still crank 30-plus home runs one day. He just needs to find in a situation where he can hit every day and fine-tune his approach at the plate, whether it's in Baltimore or another city.
SS Anthony Volpe, New York Yankees
Now in his fourth MLB season, Anthony Volpe has been consistently mediocre with the Yankees. To his credit, the former Gold Glover has left his 2025 defensive troubles in the past. His brief stint as the worst defensive shortstop in the American League is over. He is once again a vacuum-caliber stopper at a premium position, which buoys his value — even if his arm strength is still recovering post-shoulder surgery.
The bat just ain't there, though. He has one home run in 138 at-bats this season, with a .668 OPS and 89 OPS+. Volpe strikes out too often (22.8 K%) and he's struggling to generate pop off the barrel (33.3 hard-hit%). So what's going on here?
Volpe was lauded as the rare 60-grade power shortstop back in 2023, when MLB Pipeline named him their No. 5 overall prospect. He was the first 20-home run, 50-stolen base minor leaguer since Andruw Jones.
It feels like confidence is a major issue for Volpe. He gets in his head. While Yankees fans are getting understandably tired of the Volpe experience, there are positive indicators. The strikeout numbers, while not great, are trending in the right direction. Volpe chased outside the zone a ton in his early years, but he has corrected that. He has more than doubled his walk rate over the past two seasons.
The patience with which Volpe is operating should, hopefully, translate to more consistent results down the road. Pair with elite speed and elite defensive metrics, and there's still a clear path to All-Star impact for the 25-year-old. Whether he gets there under the bright lights of Yankee Stadium is another question entirely.
OF Jasson Domínguez, New York Yankees
Sticking with the Yankees, Jasson Domínguez is probably the clearest analog for Jordan Walker in this conversation. The Cardinals zoomed Walker through the farm system and debuted him as a toolsy 20-year-old with pie-in-the-sky expectations. Domínguez also made his Yankees debut at 20. Four years later, Domínguez has become a source of extreme frustration for the Bronx faithful, who see the potential but almost never see the results.
Domínguez has every tool imaginable for an outfielder. He's strong, explosive and quick, with natural power. But he has spent his first few years in MLB sputtering at the plate. He strikes out too much. He's a switch-hitter, but he's still hamstrung by matchups. Up until this season, Domínguez was a dramatically better hitter against right-handed pitching compared to his splits against southpaws. Those numbers have actually flipped this season, with a bit more balance. So maybe that's a sign of growth.
In reality, Domínguez hits the baseball too hard and is much too athletic to write off completely. The defense can be atrocious. For years, it was downright disqualifying. But he's only a bad defender right now (-1 outs above average), compared to the unplayable defender he was a year ago (-9 outs above average). He has cut his strikeout rate to a more managable 20.0 percent, improving more than six points over last season's number. He still gets the bat through the zone quickly. His current expected average (.270) is dramatically better than his actual average (.235), which points to bad luck — and suggests imminent improvement.
Domínguez is finally hitting lefties. He's starting to tighten the screws on some of his more maddening deficiencies. There is still a long way to go, and New York's crowded outfield puts him under a lot of pressure. At the end of the day, however, the man is 23 years old. To think he is disqualified from future stardom would be foolish.
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