Update: The St. Louis Cardinals announced over the weekend that Jordan Walker would be added to the Major League roster in time for Thursday's home opener.
Original story:
ST. LOUIS–This week’s announcement that Adam Wainwright will start the 2023 Major League Baseball season on the injured list instead of the St. Louis Cardinals active roster is a reminder that you can’t assume much of anything when it comes to predicting rosters or lineups that will be introduced next Thursday afternoon for the season opener at Busch Stadium against the Toronto Blue Jays.
But if outfield prospect Jordan Walker’s eye-popping performance in Spring Training hasn’t already given fans a clue of where he stands to be this time next week, here’s another tea leaf to interpret.
The team is planning for merchandise.
While the Cardinals have had the entire offseason to get stocked up on Willson Contreras items to highlight the team’s biggest offseason acquisition, the process of getting up to speed for ascending talent coming from the minor leagues is a little more complicated.
“As we see the young guys doing well, or fan excitement, a lot of popularity around them, we will reach out to Nike and we’ll reach out to our vendor and have those kind of pre-set up and be ready for that so once they come up, we have a number then we get them the number and hopefully they can speed through it,” Stephanie Spargur, Busch Stadium’s Retail Director told Spectrum News.
Spargur said they’ve been in touch with vendors to be ready when Walker gets the call and gets a number.
He’s wearing the No. 67 on his jersey this spring, typical of non-roster invitees, but not usually the kind of number that gets assigned in season, especially to a team’s top prospect. The No. 22 he wore in the minors last season has pitcher Jack Flaherty’s name on it at the big league level.
The good news for die-hard fans is that when Walker’s time comes, an authentic jersey with his name on it will be available quickly, thanks to in-house customization.
“A jersey we can get as soon as a player comes up and we know his number, we can do that on our heat press here right away, instantly,” Spargur said. “Once we have that official number. We gotta wait for that but we can get a jersey right away, and then the t-shirts are two to three weeks…we push them as much as we can and of course they know we want to get it in here as soon as possible.”