Cardinals hitting coach went above and beyond for struggling slugger this offseason

Since the moment he was hired by the St. Louis Cardinals this offseason, new hitting coach Brant Brown has received so much praise from the front office, coaching staff, and most importantly, Cardinals hitters as they prepared for the 2025 season.

The early-season results have been better than anyone could have asked for or imagined. Up and down the Cardinals lineup, players are hitting for average, getting on base, slugging the baseball when they get pitches to hit, and scoring runs upon runs. Even bats like Masyn Winn and Willson Contreras, who started out ice cold, found a way to break through in a huge spot during Wednesday's contest.

"Brownie," the nickname many refer to him by, has approached the Cardinals hitters with a refreshing approach that seems to have the entire group fired up. Instead of lumping one style onto every player, Brown has been credited with understanding how each player takes in instruction and information, and he caters his communication with them accordingly. There are team-wide messages, such as being relentless and resilient and knowing what the situation, or even the specific pitch, calls for each at-bat, but the way he goes about helping players improve and unlock their offensive potential varies from individual to individual.

A variety of Cardinals bats need bounce-back years in 2025, and none more so than young slugger Nolan Gorman, who went from a breakout campaign in 2023 to looking completely lost at the plate in 2024. While he has not been a primary starter for the Cardinals to start the year, he's looked good in a small sample size, and it is clear that Gorman has been working hard with Brown on refining his game.

Brant Brown lived minutes away from Nolan Gorman during the offseason and worked with him daily.

Tamar Sher of KMOV shared a clip of Brown discussing his work with Gorman over the offseason over on X, and Brown talked about how he and Gorman worked tirelessly this offseason to get him right for this season.

Gorman struggled during spring training, which wasn't a major surprise given how much the Cardinals seemed to overhaul his swing and approach this winter. It was likely going to take time for Gorman to find success again (if that ends up happening), so losing the starting DH role to Alec Burleson was not shocking, other than the fact that John Mozeliak touted Gorman as a guy who needed 500-600 plate appearances this offseason.

Gorman has just eight at-bats through the team's first six games, but he's posted a .500/.556/1.000 slash line with one solo home run and just one strikeout thus far. The big thing for Gorman that he must figure out if he is going to be successful in St. Louis is that really high strikeout rate, so it is encouraging to see him cut that down in this short sample size.

Oliver Marmol was asked about Gorman's at-bats situation on KMOX this week, and while he agreed that it was complicated to find him playing time, he assured listeners that they are going to be creative in doing so, and when the inevitable injury happens, it will create more opportunity for Gorman.

Gorman can only control how he performs when his name is called upon at this point, so he needs to continue to take advantage of those opportunities when they come. He has immense power potential and has displayed that before, so the hope is that over the course of this season, he's able to tap into all of that once again.

For now, Gorman will continue to work closely with Brown like he has all offseason and, when he finds his name in the lineup card or is called upon in a late-game situation, show the Cardinals the fruit of the hard work he has put in since the end of the 2024 season.