DataBaseball
2026
Nolan Gorman headshot

Players · G · 3B · 2026

Nolan Gorman

Age
26
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 0"
Weight
225 lb
Number
#16
Born
May 10, 2000 in Phoenix, AZ, United States
MLB debut
May 20, 2022
Drafted
2018, round 1
High school
O'Connor
Salary, 2026
$2.65M
dbWAR
5.2
5 season(s)
PA
296
AVG
.188
OBP
.274
SLG
.314
wRC+
65
100 = avg

Nolan Gorman is a third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals. So far in 2026 he has hit 9 home runs and knocked in 33 RBIs, notching 49 hits across 296 plate appearances in 83 games. His batting average is .188, 23.0% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .274 clip and slugged .314, for an OPS of .588, 18.2% lower than the league mark of .719 — 15th of 18 on his team, and 407th of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 89.5 mph off the bat, hit 42.4% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 8.8% of them and made contact on 62.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 65 wRC+ puts his offence 35% below average. That comes to -0.3 dbWAR — -13.1 runs with the bat, +0.7 for the ballpark, -0.8 on the bases, +1.0 on double plays, +0.1 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2026.

wRC+65
wOBA.265
ISO.126
BB%10.8%
WAR-.3

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to -2.9 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting-13.1Ballpark+0.7Baserunning-0.8Double plays+1.0Position+0.1Replacement+9.2
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

2.51.1-0.32223242526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026STL832964993303294.188.274.314.126.24810.8%31.8%.265-13.165-0.3
2025STL108402721446147136.205.296.370.165.28311.7%33.8%.294-6.9880.6
2024STL105402741950634151.203.271.400.197.2798.5%37.6%.292-6.7871.1
2023STL118464962776753148.236.328.478.241.29611.4%31.9%.346+9.91152.5
2022STL88313641435128103.226.300.420.194.3018.9%32.9%.318+1.61071.3

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP464281313.190.239.286.23528.3%
vs RHP2502194182981.187.280.320.27032.4%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 169 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 170 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
8.8%
15 barrels
Exit velocity
89.5
mph average
Max exit velo
111.9
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
42.4%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
37.6%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
21.6°
average
Barrel rate8.8%
Exit velocity89.5 mph
Hard hit rate42.4%
Contact rate62.7%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

.063.133.098.125.18816 AB.00013 AB.1258 AB.14328 AB.17928 AB.61513 AB.17617 AB.34529 AB.33315 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .243.

Situational hitting

How Nolan Gorman hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations296——————.188.274.314.265
Bases empty16914923552060.154.254.282.249
Runner on first50461113413.239.300.326.284
Runners on127112264281234.232.299.357.286
RISP776615325821.227.299.379.287

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

Head to head

Put Nolan Gorman beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Nolan Gorman

Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.