Jordan Walker was on his last legs. Then he got another, and another, and another. When he finally stopped swinging, he was the champion of the Home Run Derby.
The Cardinals righty won the 2026 Home Run Derby in Philadelphia on Monday with five straight do-or-die swings. Hometown favorite Kyle Schwarber took the lead going into the final round and shot 11. That got Walker excited by the fans at Citizens Bank Park — the boos got louder and louder for the home run.
Walker had only eight homers in his 15 swings in the final inning, but the Derby’s new rules this year did not allow innings to end with a home run, so batters could keep swinging as long as they continued to go yard. So Walker kept swinging — and kept going to the yard. He launched his ninth and 10th long balls before crushing a 450-foot shot to left-center to tie Schwarber. Walker paused for a moment to catch his breath, then took one last swing to finish it off.
The trophy went to Phillies fans, who bashed everyone and everything that wasn’t Schwarber or Bryce Harper.
“I was told never to thank anyone,” Walker said with a smile after the ceremony.
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“My thought was ‘Philly is brutal,’ to be honest,” he said. “But I think it’s very special because they love their players. That’s what you want in your home – where you play. I’ve never heard people cheer for Schwarber and Harper.”
The first-place prize was $1 million, which is more than the $799,400 Walker will make in 2026 in minimum league salary.
As Davy Andrews noted in our Derby preview, this feels like Walker’s year. He was the best prospect in his 2023 debut, but struggled through his first three seasons, with an 89 wRC+ in over 1,000 plate appearances in 2025. After showing some promise in his rookie season (.276/.342/.445, 16 home runs, + 116 option) the 2024 season, where he had a slash line of .155/.239/.259, no home runs, and a 42 wRC+ in 67 plate appearances. He spent four months in the minors, and while his performance upon his permanent return at the end of August (.242/.273/.463, five homers, 103 wRC+ in 99 plate appearances) still fell short of what the Cardinals expected of him, it felt like something he could build on next season. Instead, things got worse, as Walker posted a 66 wRC+ with six home runs and a -1.3 WAR over 111 games in 2025.
During the off-season, he went to Driveline to learn what went wrong and how to fix it. He honed his mechanics to get his body in better shape before swinging and help his bat take a more direct path to the ball during it. He wanted his improvised instruments to be second nature, so he didn’t have to think about them while at the plate. Yet for all the work he did, he still struggled during spring training, so much so that the Cardinals kept him off the hitter list for three days. Working with assistant trainer Casey Chenoweth, Walker went back to basics and let it rip. According to Derrick Goldal of Louis Post-Dispatch:
“I’m going to hit these balls as hard as I can,” Walker told Chenoweth. “I did that. I took a few more. I took a couple of athletic swings. I caught some barrels. And I was like: I’m going to dial it back a little bit to get a mid-game swing. It worked. I went forward from there. I didn’t think about the mechanics, but then I watched the video and that’s what I was trying to do.”
He hasn’t looked back since. Across 93 games and 395 plate appearances this season, Walker is hitting .294/.354/.532 with 22 home runs, a 143 wRC+, and 2.7 WAR. The biggest change seems to be his ability to lift the ball, helping to get more out of his uber-fast swing.
That new swing was on display for all 31 players Walker needed to win on Monday. He advanced to the first round with 13 dingers, tying Wilson Contreras for most in the round. In the semifinals, Walker faced Junior Caminero, last year’s Derby runner-up and the only major player with a faster bat speed than Walker. Caminero hit just five homers, and Walker quickly reached the plate to advance to the finals.
In all, opponents hit 131 home runs at an average distance of 430 feet, or about 10.7 total homers, according to Baseball Savant.
2026 Home Run Derby
| Name | 1st Round HR | 2nd Round HR | Last round HR | It’s long |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jordan Walker | 13 | 6 | 12 | 470 |
| Kyle Schwarber | 10 | 9 | 11 | 461 |
| Wilson Contreras | 13 | 8 | NA | 490 |
| Little Caminero | 12 | 5 | NA | 491 |
| Munetaka Murakami | 9 | NA | NA | 466 |
| Bryce Harper | 8 | NA | NA | 482 |
| Jac Caglianone | 8 | NA | NA | 477 |
| Ben Rice | 7 | NA | NA | 443 |
The Home Run Derby remains one of the strangest events on the baseball calendar. It’s great to see good sluggers hanging out with their friends and families, hitting flies in a casual business environment. But the presentation can make for a confusing spectacle for the home viewer.
The event this year was streamed exclusively on Netflix. I didn’t subscribe to Netflix, and a few hours later I was, and now I’m not. The coverage started about an hour before the Derby, with roundtable banter and enough swearing to let you know this wasn’t your grandparent’s Home Run Derby. Then Michael Buffer, accompanied by the umpire, announced the contestants to arrange a boxing ring at second base. These players came out wearing the fourth of July jersey they wore in the games at the beginning of the month.
Once the Derby started, the broadcast was great. It’s hard to explain 131 home runs, and the announcers generally haven’t tried, handling the event closer to a live podcast than live news. Aside from the timed laps, it didn’t quite have the pace of years past, but there were still some suggestive camera cuts, from the throw to the swing to the plane to the stairs to the celebrity’s near-baseball reaction in the T-Mobile commercial to throw and, repeat.
Everything felt so smooth. Maybe too smooth at times, as some have described the event as boring, drowsy, lack of juice, etc. There was nothing controversial or historical or important news. It all felt very… okay. In fact, it wasn’t until Walker’s do-or-die switch that there was anything concrete to say about the Derby at all. Everyone just stepped up to the plate, hit homers, and had a good time.
