Cardinals weigh Memphis stint for Nolan Gorman to fix swing issues

The Cardinals were not trying to erase Nolan Gorman’s power. They were trying to save it. A Memphis assignment would be aimed at one thing above all else: cutting the swing-and-miss that has kept his left-handed bat from matching its raw damage.

Gorman’s power has never been the question. He hit a career-high 27 home runs in 2023 and posted an .805 OPS, the kind of ceiling that keeps a hitter in the conversation even when the floor drops. But the misses piled up in 2024, when his strikeout rate climbed to 37.6 percent and the Cardinals optioned him to Triple-A Memphis on Aug. 21, where he stayed for the rest of the season. Jordan Walker was in the same orbit then, and the parallel stints in Memphis made the message clear: the organization was still trying to rebuild two young bats rather than scrap them.

That is what makes another reset different from a simple demotion. Gorman, drafted 19th overall in 2018 and a major leaguer since May 20, 2022, is still only in his mid-20s. The Cardinals have seen enough of the power to believe the bat is salvageable, but they have also seen enough whiff to know the current version is not stable. Gorman said the 2024 demotion was frustrating, and he later described keeping a private journal to work through it. That is the emotional cost of a move like this, even for a player with real thunder in his barrel.

The Cardinals have also kept looking for answers around him. Last offseason, Gorman worked closely with hitting coach Brant Brown in the Phoenix area, where both lived. More recently, he also worked with a hitting instructor recommended by Nolan Arenado. That kind of extra work usually means a club is not looking for a temporary hot streak. It is looking for a structural fix.

The early returns this spring were mixed. Gorman opened at .160, going 4-for-25, before a 2-for-2 day against Sean Manaea on March 12 that included a triple and a double. He finished that stretch with four strikeouts in 27 at-bats. He also needed sharper defense, with Oliver Marmol asking for more agility, mobility, and consistency at third base. If Memphis helps him tighten the swing plane, cut the chase, and keep the power intact, the path back to St. Louis gets shorter fast. For the Cardinals, that is the point: not a reset for reset’s sake, but a chance to get the bat that once looked like a middle-order answer moving in the right direction again.