The Cardinals' reset is the perfect situation for this struggling slugger

If there is one player who should benefit from the directional shift the St. Louis Cardinals are undertaking, it should be Nolan Gorman.

With most of the offseason still ahead of us, there's still plenty of uncertainty surrounding the Cardinals' roster for 2025, but I can't imagine a scenario where Gorman isn't set up for plenty of opportunities this upcoming season. Barring some unforeseen trade where the Cardinals get great value in return for Gorman, he should be toward the top of their list of bats who need time to develop in their lineup.

Let's not forget who Gorman was before his awful 2024 campaign. Prior to his debut in 2022, Gorman was a top 20 prospect in all of baseball, and while his first taste of big league action wasn't special, he still managed to be an above-league-average hitter (105 wRC+) and slugged 14 home runs in 89 games.

Gorman followed that up with a major step forward in 2023, slashing .236/.328/.478 with 27 home runs and 76 RBI in 119 games, amounting to a 118 wRC+ and 2.2 fWAR season. I've talked about this before, but if you look at Gorman's 2023 campaign month by month, he was one of the best hitters in baseball for four of the six months they played. His overall slash line was significantly hindered by a terrible month of June (22 wRC+) and below-average August (80 wRC+). Otherwise, Gorman was between 35%-55% above average throughout the season.

That brought us to the 2024 season, where expectations were high for Gorman and many expected him to help carry the offense in a big way, just as he did in 2023. Instead, Gorman basically went through a season-long slump, and outside of a red-hot month of May, was mostly unwatchable at the plate. That's a major problem.

If the Cardinals were a team with playoff or World Series expectations in 2025, Gorman would be on a very short leash. At least that's how they've operated in recent years, which John Mozeliak himself acknowledged recently to The Athletic's Katie Woo:

“In the past, we couldn’t keep trying,” Mozeliak said. “We’d have to go out and address those needs. Now what we’re saying is we’re going to let (the players) go play and find out if they can make those adjustments. Let’s see if they can do it for us, instead of us giving up on them and now they’re doing it for someone else.”

It feels like Mozeliak has been wrong about a lot of things recently, but it's hard to argue with him on this. The position the Cardinals are in right now is ripe for letting guys like Gorman, Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn, Ivan Herrera, Alec Burleson, Lars Nootbaar, and other young bats and pitchers go out and "see what they are". And I'm not just talking about seeing what they look like in Spring Training or for a month of the season, I'm saying they need to go out and play full seasons, seeing if they can overcome their struggles.

2024 could very well be a sign of things to come for Gorman, or at least a signal that the future may not be as bright as we had once hoped. But haven't we been quick to blame the Cardinals for giving up on young bats too quickly in recent years? Sure, he's had a longer run than Randy Arozarena or Adolis Garica had, but he's also already accomplished far more than they had before being shipped away. We've seen Gorman's bat play at an elite level for sustained stretches. His power is rare. The Cardinals are in a position to give up on that potential yet.

Sure, if Thomas Saggese or someone else earns playing time, you give it to them. But Gorman should be a major part of the Cardinals' roster in 2025, barring a collapse worse than he had last year. The risk? You see Gorman continue to struggle and know a change needs to happen. The potential reward? You've got a big bat on your hands.

In a reset year, that's the exact kind of risk the Cardinals should be taking.