Now is the time for the Cardinals to unleash Nolan Gorman and see what he's got

The St. Louis Cardinals are desperate for some power in their lineup, and with Jordan Walker sitting on the injured list for at least the next week, now is the perfect time to see if Nolan Gorman can harmonize his refined approach with his home run swing.

Gorgman is slated to bat eighth tonight for St. Louis and fill in at the designated hitter spot, which will be just his sixth start since May 14th.

After this weekend's series against the Texas Rangers, the Cardinals rank 25th in all of baseball in home runs with 52, only outpacing the Miami Marlins, Colorado Rockies, Chicago White Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Kansas City Royals. While bats like Willson Contreras and Ivan Herrera could certainly tap into more power themselves and improve upon that team-wide weakness, there's a reason the Cardinals don't have a ton of home runs right now — they don't have big-time power bats in their lineup.

Contreras, Herrera, Lars Nootbaar, Alec Burleson, Masyn Winn, Brendan Donovan, and perhaps even Nolan Arenado could find themselves in the 20+ home run club by season's end, but that's not going to come close to competing with the power that other offenses in baseball boast in their respective lineups.

Nootbaar, who currently leads the club with eight round trippers on the year, is tied for 66th in baseball in home runs. Yikes. Not yikes that Nootbaar has eight home runs — that's a nice number for him at this point in the year — but yikes that the club can't boast more power than that.

I can't tell you I'm confident that Gorman will provide that power either, but if there is one player on the Cardinals roster who could become that bat, it's Gorman.

Now is the perfect time for the Cardinals to unleash Nolan Gorman and see if he can bring power to their lineup.

The Cardinals will be without Jordan Walker until at least June 7th, giving St. Louis at least this next week of baseball to see if Gorman can make some noise at the plate.

Things have continued to spiral downward for Gorman this year, as the lefty slugger is slashing just .189/.283/.300 in 106 plate appearances and has hit just one home run on the season. Yeah, not good. But let's be honest, he's averaging about 7-10 at-bats per week right now, and it's hard to see how he's going to break out of this funk if he's rarely playing.

There are some positive things to glean from Gorman's small sample size, though. He's dropped his Whiff% on fastballs by almost 10% since last year and his K% on fastballs by 15%. He's whiffing on 3% fewer of the sliders he's seen and striking out on 7% fewer of them. He's seen massive improvements in how he's tracking change-ups and curveballs as well, dropping his whiff rate down by 22.1% and 4.4% respectively while decreasing his strikeout percentage on those pitches by 11.3% and 17.9% as well.

Overall, Gorman is whiffing on 9.7% fewer of the pitches he sees this year and is striking out just 10.2% of the time as well. He's walking more frequently, upping that percentage from 8.5% in 2024 to 12.3% in 2025, which would rank 35th among qualified hitters this season. No, I'm not telling you Gorman is going to break out or even be a competent hitter again, but he's improved dramatically on his most glaring issue so far, so maybe consistent playing time would allow him to tap into his power while swinging and missing far less than he did before.

The Cardinals' offense has scuffled as of late, and with 28 games coming in 29 days during the month of June, they'll need to deploy their full bench in order to keep guys fresh and get this offense to produce during a critical stretch of the season. I do anticipate that adding to potential playing time for Gorman, but again, with Walker out currently, this is the ideal time to run Gorman out there and let him sink or swim offensively.

There are a few ways the Cardinals can work Gorman into the lineup, and if they do a combination of these things, it won't be all that difficult to get him in there on a consistent basis for the next few weeks.

1. First, let Ivan Herrera catch more than once or twice a week. I'm not saying make him the full-time catcher, but even three starts behind the plate can turn into one additional start for Gorman. Pedro Pages' game calling and arm behind the plate have been assets for this club, but playing Gorman is just as much about helping the club slug this year as it is about learning if he's a part of the club long term.
2. Second, work in some off days for different position players during this marathon of games ahead of them. Nolan Arenado has not been right offensively this year, so why not schedule one day off per week? Maybe sit one or two of Nootbaar, Contreras, Burleson, or Scott per week as well. If Oliver Marmol does all of these things, then there may be 5-7 starts per week freed up for Gorman to jump in and show if he's worth those opportunities.

I'm not saying the Cardinals should commit to him as an everyday player from here on out, but I also don't see how the infrequent nature of his playing time right now helps things either. I totally understand the crunch Marmol feels when Walker is healthy, so this is why I am saying take advantage of the opportunity in front of them right now. Give Gorman run while Walker is out, and continue to work him in more frequently than they have in the week or two following. If June is another pedestrian month from Gorman, then you won't hear me asking to see him either.

But I think we can all admit that if Gorman is able to rediscover even 70% of the power barrage we got to know him for back in 2023, he becomes a major asset for this Cardinals lineup that may actually need to play every day. Gorman is capable of changing the game with one swing of the bat when he's right, and when he's really right, he goes on tears where he produces like a top-five hitter in all of baseball.

Look at the date of that tweet. That was 2024. Yup, I didn't even go back and reference 2023 where Gorman had 6 HR in March/April with a 135 wRC+, 7 HR in May with a 155 wRC+, 7 HR in July with a 152 wRC+, and 3 HR in September/October with a 145 wRC+. Even last year, when Gorman was about as lost as he's ever been at the plate, he put together a 25-day stretch where he ranked first in all of baseball in wRC+, fWAR, SLG, OPS, HR, R, WPA, second in OBP and RBI, and third in AVG.

That kind of red-hot power could transform this Cardinals lineup, and it's why they need to keep going back to Gorman as often as they can while they still have him. If he doesn't take advantage of his opportunities this month and going into early July, perhaps he'll find himself moving on to a different organization at the trade deadline. But for now, while the Cardinals' record is much better than any of us expected it would be and they are performing at a high level, they might as well see if Gorman has what it takes.

And you know who would be the first people to yell and scream at the Cardinals if Gorman found success elsewhere? The same people who claim right now that Gorman should never touch this lineup. Can't have it both ways.

Let's see how creative the Cardinals get with Gorman's playing time while Walker is out and then when he returns. Gorman's presence in tonight's lineup is a good sign, but we'll need to see if they are willing to commit the necessary playing time to him.