The Armchair GM: The Case to Send Nolan Gorman to Memphis

ARMCHAIR GM — The Cardinal Chronicle
The Case to Send Down Nolan Gorman
St. Louis, MO
By Ray Mileur

There comes a point where patience and performance have to meet at the same table.

For Nolan Gorman and the St. Louis Cardinals, that point may be arriving.
Gorman remains one of the most dangerous left-handed power bats in the organization, boasting 27 home runs in 2023 and ranking among the team leaders in isolated power (ISO).

That should not be dismissed. Few players in the Cardinals’ system can change a game with one swing the way he can—his average home run distance last season was over 410 feet. When he connects, the baseball leaves in a hurry, and that kind of raw power is still highly valued in today’s game, especially with league-wide home run rates surging.

But power alone cannot carry a roster spot forever.

The case to option Gorman to Triple-A Memphis is not about giving up on him. It is not about running him out of town. It is not about pretending the talent is gone.
It is about admitting the current version is not helping the Cardinals enough.

The biggest issue remains the swing-and-miss.

Gorman’s offensive profile has always come with strikeouts—his 32.3% strikeout rate in 2023 was among the highest on the team—and the Cardinals have lived with that because the payoff can be loud. But when the strikeouts pile up and the production dries up, the math changes. A player with that much swing-and-miss has to do real damage when he makes contact. If he is not doing that consistently, the holes in the profile become too large to ignore, especially when his on-base percentage dips below league average.

Major league pitchers know where to go.

They can challenge him upstairs with velocity. They can expand the zone with breaking balls. They can force him into counts where he has to protect, and too often, the result is either a swing through the pitch or weak contact that does not move the offense forward.

That matters in a competitive season.

There are nights when the Cardinals do not need a three-run homer. They need a sacrifice fly. They need a ground ball to the right side. They need a ball in play with a runner on third and less than two outs. They need an at-bat that does not end with the bat still on the shoulder or cutting through air.

That is where Gorman’s struggles become more than just a personal slump.

They affect roster construction.

When a hitter is locked in, Gorman’s power can cover up a lot of flaws. When he is not, the floor drops hard. The batting average sinks—he hit just .236 last season—and the on-base percentage suffers, falling below .300 for stretches.

The middle or lower part of the lineup can go quiet for weeks at a time, as seen when Gorman went 2-for-32 during a late-season slump in 2023. That all-or-nothing style may be tolerable on a rebuilding club, but the Cardinals are no longer playing like a team content to spend the summer evaluating everyone at the major league level.

The Cardinals have been down this road before. In 2024, the organization sent Gorman to Memphis when the strikeout issues became too much to carry. That move was not made because the Cardinals stopped believing in his ability. It was made because sometimes a player needs to get out of the daily major league grind and rebuild the foundation.

That same logic applies now.

A Triple-A reset would give Gorman a chance to work on pitch recognition, timing, front-side control and his overall approach without every failed at-bat becoming a referendum on his future. There is a difference between working through adjustments and trying to survive them in the middle of a big-league race.

Memphis does not have to be a sentence.

It can be a workshop.

That is how the Cardinals should view it.

Gorman needs at-bats. He needs to see pitches. He needs to work through the kind of mechanical and approach issues that cannot always be fixed with a few extra swings in the cage before a night game at Busch Stadium. If the launch angle feel is off, if the timing is late, if the swing path is getting too uphill, those are not small problems. Those are the kinds of things that require repetition.

The Cardinals also have to consider the roster around him.

There are utility player options can give the Cardinals more contact, more defensive flexibility, or more consistent plate appearances. If Gorman is not producing enough to hold down regular at-bats at third base, second base or designated hitter, then St. Louis has to ask whether that roster spot is being used the best way possible.

That is not personal.

That is roster management.

This is where the front office has to be honest. Gorman’s upside is still tempting—at just 24 years old, he remains one of the youngest regulars on the roster. His power still matters. His age still gives him time. But potential does not win tonight’s game. Production does.

For years, the Cardinals have talked about creating competition. Well, competition only works if performance carries consequences. If a player struggles and the organization keeps rolling him out there because of what he might become, that is not competition. That is reputation management.

The Cardinals cannot afford that. Not if they are serious about staying in the National League Central picture.

Sending Gorman down would also send the right message to the clubhouse. It would say the Cardinals are still invested in development, but not at the expense of winning baseball games. It would say that no one is being discarded, but no one is above adjustment either. That is a healthy standard.

Now, there is risk.

Gorman could go to Memphis, rake for three weeks—he slugged .600 in a 2024 Triple-A stint—come back, and still have the same swing-and-miss problems when major league pitchers start attacking him again. That is possible. Triple-A success does not automatically fix major league flaws.

But doing nothing carries risk, too.

Letting him continue to struggle in a limited or uncertain role may do more damage than a reset would. A young hitter can lose confidence quickly when the strikeouts mount and the boos start to follow. Sometimes the best thing a club can do is get the player out of the storm before the storm becomes the story.

That is where the Cardinals are with Gorman.

They do not need to give up on him.

They need to give him a plan.

Send him to Memphis. Give him regular at-bats. Give him clear markers. Make the assignment specific: improve chase decisions, tighten the swing path, handle velocity up, use the middle of the field, reduce empty at-bats.

Do not make it vague. Do not make it punitive. Make it purposeful.

When he checks those boxes, bring him back.

That is how a serious organization handles a talented player who has lost his way.

Nolan Gorman still has the kind of power that can help the Cardinals. There is no need to pretend otherwise. But right now, the swing-and-miss is too loud, the production is too inconsistent, and the roster alternatives are too real to ignore.

The Cardinals are trying to win baseball games.

If Gorman is going to be part of that, he needs to be more than a dangerous mistake pitch hitter.

He needs to become a more complete hitter.

And for the moment, the best place to work toward that may not be St. Louis.
It may be Memphis.

The Cardinal Chronicle, in association wtih Gateway Sports
Preserving the Past, Promoting the Present, and Projecting the Future.

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