Cardinals Option Gorman as Strikeouts Pile Up

The St. Louis Cardinals are making some serious changes to their active roster.

Some that are long overdue. On Wednesday, The Cardinals announced that infielder Nolan Gorman has been optioned to Triple-A Memphis. His spot on the roster will be replaced by infielder José Fermín

Gorman has not had a good season at the plate. In fact, his performance has been historically bad. According to Fangraphs , There have been 19,605 individual player seasons with at least 400 PA since 1871, Nolan Gorman’s current 37.6% strikeout rate ranks 19,602 among them. The leash has been too long for him for quite some time now.

He will head to Memphis to make some necessary adjustments that will allow him to be more competitive either for the Cardinals in the postseason (if they can find a way into the NL wildcard) or for 2025. The Cardinals would love to have Gorman's bat in the lineup as he produces great power when he gets ahold of the baseball, but the strikeouts have become too much of an issue.

In 2024 Gorman has hit .203/.271/.435 with 19 homers and 50 RBIs. He has 151 strikeouts across 399 plate appearances.

As for Fermin, he will return to the major league ballclub after having a stint with the Cardinals earlier in the year. While he was with St. Louis the 25 year old hit .130/.216/.174 across 30 games.

The team has now made two major changes to the roster this week. On Monday the Cardinals sent outfielder Jordan Walker back to Triple-A as well as granted the release to veteran shortstop Brandon Crawford .

Although the team is making some changes in hopes of improving the lineup, it may be too late. After the loss against the Milwaukee Brewers in the series opener on Tuesday, the Cardinals are now 12 games outside the division lead and six games behind the Atlanta Braves for the final wildcard spot in the National League.