Thoughts on Nolan Gorman and three other young “runway” hitters
Has Gorman with his recent surge established himself as a keeper under Chaim Bloom? Yes, it says here
The leading objective of the 2025 season, at least coming in, was to provide incoming POBO Chaim Bloom with dossiers on the young core of players who were poised to be central to the organization’s long-term future. Thanks to the paucity of high-ceiling pitching depth in the system, this mostly meant young hitters. The idea was to stuff those dossiers with their performances at the highest level with as little interruption as possible. That’s the runway, in the adopted parlance of decision-makers. John Mozeliak’s failure to trade Nolan Arenado followed by Ivan Herrera’s move from catcher to DH complicated matters and forced Oli Marmol to play those runway hitters less often than he’d like. As such, the information gleaned from the runway is compromised to an extent, but it’s all we have. With a month of regular season left, it’s time to examine where these hitters might stand in Bloom’s estimation.
Straightaway, the most encouraging case is that of Nolan Gorman — the primary focus of this episode — and that’s based on what he’s done since Marmol started contorting his lineups to give him consistent playing time. Overall, Gorman in his age-25 season has an OPS+ (what’s this?) of 111 with 13 home runs in 87 games, a reduced strikeout rate, and an improved walk rate. That’s ample progress relative to his 2024 struggles, and he’s truly been on another personal level since he made a subtle change at the plate and received consistent playing time. Here’s what Gorman has done since June 3, when his run of regular playing time roughly began, compared to what he’d done this season up until that point:
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