Nolan Gorman, a 23-year-old INF/DH has transformed himself into one of baseball’s brightest young stars in 2023. The former first round pick has always had high praise, but now he’s finally getting a chance to show what he’s capable of at the big league level. After spending a decent chunk of time in the big leagues in 2022, Gorman has taken incredible leaps in his game. What’s changed? How good has Gorman become? Today, we’ll take a look at his young career, and the steps he’s taken to transform his game.

2022: First Taste of MLB Play

After earning a big league call-up on May 19th alongside Matthew Liberatore, Gorman would play 89 games, and become an important role player. In his 89 game big league stint, Gorman would hit 14 homers, 8.9% BB%, 32.9% K%, .341 xwOBA, 107 wRC+, and a 0.5 fWAR. While these numbers are solid overall, Gorman’s high strikeout rate led to his demotion back to AAA in September.

If there were any takeaways that could clearly be seen from his 89 game stint in 2022, it was his ability to barrel the ball at the plate. Gorman maintained a very impressive barrel percentage of 14.4% during his rookie year, something that is not an easy feat to accomplish. This was certainly a good sign of things to come. Gorman would also post a good hard hit percentage of 43.3%, a feat which is not easy to accomplish.

Though, a place where Gorman struggled would be with his pitch selection. Gorman would post a swing percentage over 51%, which is not a great sign. Along with this, Gorman would post a decently high chase percentage, coming in at just over 31%. All of these numbers are really concerning, but make sense when you take into consideration how Gorman handled off-speed and breaking pitches during his rookie campaign. As previously mentioned, Gorman walked 8.9% of the time, which again is lower than most would expect. This again is due to his lack of plate discipline, leading to more concern. As you can see in the graphs below, Gorman often expanded the strike zone far more than necessary, leading to a lot of his struggles during his first season. This expansion of the zone also could’ve also led to his incredibly high K% of 32.9%.

While high chase rates and low patience at the plate is to be expected with rookies, these numbers raised significant concern among the Cardinals executives, and those across the league.

All in all, Gorman would show in his rookie season that he could be an elite hitter, but needed some work. But with an off-season full of grinding, Gorman’s problems would be fully sorted out, turning him into one of the league’s best hitters.

2023: One of the League’s Best

After an off-season of adjustments and working on his craft, Gorman has done nothing but rake so far in 2023. So far through 49 games, Gorman has hit 13 homers, posted a 12.4% BB%, 25.4% K%, .392 xwOBA, 156 wRC+, and a 1.8 fWAR. Gorman also ranks in the top 20% or better in max exit velocity, hard hit percentage, xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, barrel percentage, and BB percentage. As you can clearly see, Gorman is destroying pitching all across the league, and becoming one of baseball’s best hitters.

The first change we clearly notice in Gorman’s numbers is his much improved BB%. This is the first indication that Gorman’s plate discipline has improved significantly, as his BB% jumped by 3.5%. Another indication of his improved plate discipline are his improved chase numbers. Gorman has significantly improved his chase percentage from 31.1%-23.9%, an improvement of over 7%. Gorman’s overall swing percentage has also improved, going from 51.1%-46%, an improvement of just over 5%. As you can see, Gorman has become a much more patient hitter, which has definitely led to his success in 2023. As you can see in the graph below, he has very clearly stopped expanding the zone.

Gorman has also improved his offensive numbers against off-speed and breaking balls significantly, which is very encouraging considering how he handled them last season. Gorman has had an xwOBA increase of .162 against breaking balls, something that is very, very impressive.

Gorman is hitting the ball much harder as well, as he’s seen an increase of 1.6%. Along with his significant increase in barrel percentage, he’s also seen a large increase in hard hit percentage. Gorman has gone from a hard hit percentage of 43.3%-49.6%, which is an incredibly impressive increase of 6.3%. The fact that Gorman is hitting the ball much harder is already encouraging enough, but once you see how it’s affected his home run totals, it becomes even more impressive. As previously mentioned, Gorman has gone from 14 homers in all of 2022, to being on pace for 42 homers in 2023. This rise in power is absolutely incredible, and is a driving factor to his success.

Another adjustment Gorman seems to have made is a slight change in his stance. As you can see in the picture below, Gorman has increased his coil in his back hip, which is a change that has helped hundreds of players increase their power numbers. With Gorman engaging his core to his fullest, it’s no wonder why his power numbers have skyrocketed.

Conclusion

Nolan Gorman is truly one of baseball’s most talented young stars, and has taken so many steps forward since his rookie campaign. From the Cardinals standpoint, this is really encouraging, especially when you consider the lackluster performances of their offense, and big time stars on the roster. For Gorman, this is a great sign of things to come, and the baseball world can’t wait to see what’s next for the young slugger.