Nobody had any lofty expectations for the St. Louis Cardinals before this season, as the team entered a rebuilding year.

Under new president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, St. Louis sold off star players over the offseason, including Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras, to bolster the farm system and reset the team. The Cardinals put a major emphasis on developing young players and homegrown talent, and seemed ready to bide their time for the next couple of years before the team would be ready to contend.

Things have not gone as the Cardinals initially expected. Nearly 130 games into the regular season, St. Louis boasts a positive 65-62 record, sitting just a few games out of a wild-card playoff spot. Even with their success this season, the Cardinals were still sellers at the trade deadline. Despite this, the team is playing better than ever, going 10-5 since then and earning five straight series wins.

Many people have stepped up for the Cardinals this season, with players like Alec Burleson, Kyle Leahy and JJ Wetherholt making a big impact. Still, St. Louis' biggest surprise has to be how well Jordan Walker has developed this season.

Walker has become a star this season

"FanGraphs' ZiPS wasn't even willing to call Walker a replacement-level player, so brutal was his 2025 season (-1.3 fWAR)," MLB.com's Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru wrote on Wednesday. "His hot start naturally made us wonder how long it could reasonably go on. The answer was roughly two and a half months; his average dropped under .300 and his OPS under .900 in mid-June, and he hasn't really looked the same since.

"But that's proven quite informative. Since June 16 -- the day his OPS dipped below .900 -- Walker has hit .279/.344/.428 (.772) with a 21.9 K%. This comparative cold streak juxtaposed against his 2026 projections (.232/.296/.373, 27.2 K%) make it quite clear that we're looking at a different hitter this year, which casts the excellent overall numbers (.289/.347/.500, 25 HR, 88 RBIs) in an even more flattering light."

Walker showcased his potential with an impressive rookie season in 2023, mashing 16 home runs and driving in 51 runs across 117 games, but that was not the case for the two following seasons. The 24-year-old struggled to find any consistent success, finishing last season with just six home runs and a .215 batting average.

Luckily, with the Cardinals prioritizing player development this year, Walker got another opportunity and has become one of the biggest contributors to St. Louis' success. The four-year veteran is having a breakout season, ranking fourth in the league with 88 runs batted in and earning his first All-Star selection, and is one of the main reasons the Cardinals are still in the playoff race.

Walker's emergence was the biggest surprise for St. Louis this season, but it surely was not the only one. The Cardinals have outperformed expectations, and though they still sold at the trade deadline, they seem ahead of schedule in their rebuild.