5 Cardinals who are facing make-or-break seasons in 2025

Nolan Gorman

Like Walker, Gorman is just a year removed from posting very encouraging numbers at the plate, but the disaster of a season he had in 2024 has left real question marks around his future.

The greatest issue with Gorman's game has always been his strikeout rate, but oh man, did it rear its ugly head in a real way last year. Gorman posted a 37.6 K% in 2024, and if that seems really high, you're right. If Gorman had qualified for leaderboards in 2024, that would broken Chris Davis' record for the worst single-season strikeout percentage in a single season (excluding the COVID-shortened seasons from Miguel Sano and Evan White).

Any time a player is in line for being the worst at something in baseball history, it's hard to imagine them bouncing back from that. Gorman has a lot to overcome mentally as he enters the 2025 season, but if he can do it, we know what kind of damage he can do at the plate.

A clear area for improvement in Gorman's game in 2025 is getting back to mashing fastballs. In 2023, Gorman posted a .282 BA and .569 SLG against fastballs, but that regressed in a big way to a .207 BA and .418 SLG in 2024. There wasn't much of a difference in how he handled breaking balls year to year, so I'm not surprised that Gorman struggled with the fastball when it seemed like things were going so poorly mentally.

Gorman was clearly pressing all year, so it makes sense that opposing pitchers were able to pump fastballs by him when he was overthinking at the plate. Gorman needs to settle down, reset mentally, and just trust his bat when he arrives at camp in 2025. Gorman still posted an elite Barrel% and LA Sweet-Spot% in 2024, so getting back to walking at an elite rate and hitting the ball hard consistently again would do just that.

Gorman's success in 2023 wasn't dumb luck. Yes, he was streaky, but the highs were truly game-breaking and happened consistently. Yes, the lows are frustrating, but they weren't as often as you'd think. 2024 wasn't streaky for Gorman, it was just terrible. I have a hard time believing that is just who he is now, but if he isn't able to move on and forget the bad from 2024, then maybe he is a lost cause.

That is exactly why the Cardinals are wanting to give him 600 plate appearances in 2025. Let Gorman go out there every day and see what happens. If he fails, well, then the Cardinals know that the promise just isn't there anymore. But if he figures things out, Gorman can be a big bat for them moving forward.

There are so many players the Cardinals are going to let sink or swim in 2025. In addition to these five names, guys like Ivan Herrera, Victor Scott II, Matthew Liberatore, and other youngsters are going to have plenty of opportunities to seize the moment.