[BigRedChief]

From STL Today

When he was 3, Nolan Gorman would carry a baseball bat as he walked around the house, and his father figured he should get him started in the game.

When Gorman was 12, he hit 18 home runs over the course of three tournaments that summer in Cooperstown, N.Y. That’s when Gorman knew he had the power.

On Monday, less than a month after he turned 18, he took the next step in that baseball development. The power-hitting third baseman from Phoenix was drafted in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft by the Cardinals with the 19th pick overall.

“It’s just an awesome honor,” said Gorman, who also represents the dawn of a new era: He’s the first player taken in the MLB draft who was born in the year 2000.

The Cardinals had two other picks on the first of the draft’s three days. With their competitive balance pick after the first round, they took Griffin Roberts, a pitcher from Wake Forest who some think could be in the majors by the end of this season, and Luken Baker, a first baseman from Texas Christian whose season was ended by a broken leg.

Gorman, who’s 6-feet-1 and 210 pounds, represents baseball as it’s played in 2018. He’s a powerhouse third baseman who, as Cardinals scouting director Randy Flores said, “hit the ball really, really hard.”

As a senior at Sandra Day O’Connor High in Phoenix, Gorman hit .421 with 10 home runs and 46 walks as teams avoided pitching to him. He had a .640 on-base percentage and an .896 slugging percentage in 32 games. As further proof of what he can do, Gorman took titles at the MLB All-Star Game high school home run derby in Miami and at the Under Armour All-American Game at Wrigley Field. He hit a home run at Petco Park in San Diego at an event there.

Gorman, who has committed to Arizona (but who Flores is optimistic will sign) had been projected to go as high as ninth in some mock drafts.

“We were thrilled the way the board worked out and you can’t believe a guy, lefthanded like that, as young as he is, someone who’s done it at the biggest stages, and done it with power, was available to us,” Flores said. “We were thrilled with that pick.”

Gorman credited his father, Brian, with the early development of his swing and former big-leaguer Damion Easley, an assistant coach on his high school team, with his further development. Gorman plays golf righthanded but swings a bat lefthanded, something he said he just did on his own.

“It’s a natural swing,” Gorman said. “(My dad) doesn’t know a crazy amount of stuff about the game. He did a tremendous amount of homework on the swing and baseball and everything and took bits and pieces here and there from different websites, different books he bought, it just tied in and came together.


“Launch angle hasn’t been a focus for me. I’ve got a pretty natural upward angle in my swing. So we haven’t really worried about launch angle or anything. In offseason work with Damian, he’s not super huge on the launch-angle thing, but he thinks getting in the right position on time to hit the ball and deliver your swing is good enough. It’s pretty much what we focused on all year.”

“On the analytics side,” Flores said, “the older you get and the more you play in front of the various measurements that are available at the college game, the more analytically inclined you might be on a pick. With his youth, and it being high school, you’re also relying on your scouts there. That being said, it doesn’t take someone who’s too smart to see he hit the ball really, really hard, but we also liked his complete approach and his ability to stay on the dirt.”

It was a very good day for Gorman because his good friend Matthew Liberatore, who he’s known since they were 5, was drafted three spots ahead of him. They exchanged texts after each was chosen and each was the first person they replied to.

With their second pick, in the competitive balance round between rounds 1 and 2, the Cardinals took righthanded pitcher Roberts, a junior who could be in the majors very soon. He had 124 strikeouts in 89 1/3 innings for Wake Forest, and has an 89-93 mph fastball and a tight slider. Roberts went from being a walk-on at Wake to an All-ACC reliever to the team’s Friday starter. He was draft eligible last season but chose to come back to improve his stock and did.

“He was one of those guys we thought had a power arsenal,” Flores said. “Our hope and aim is for him to be in the rotation but candidly, we’re all seeing how major-league rosters and bullpens are evolving also. So if he turns into someone we think is going to be able to relieve with that power stuff, we will see what happens in the next couple years of his career.”

With the second-round compensation pick that they got for losing Lance Lynn as a free agent, the Cardinals took Baker, who is well regarded but has had lousy luck. The 6-4, 265 pound junior hurt his arm and needed surgery at the end of his sophomore season, and this season broke his leg on April 17, which may have contributed to him being still available with the 75th pick.

“There are some things you can’t predict,” Flores said. “You round a base and you break a leg. You have a collision and you have an injury to your shoulder. With him fighting through those injuries and still producing the way he has, and handled himself the way he has, we don’t think we have a chance to draft Luken Baker at that slot if it weren’t for those things. I know he’s bummed. I would imagine that’s part of his playing history and his resilience, and the ability to put those types of numbers together with that type of strength, in spite of that, is something we really admire.”

Baker hit .319 this season with nine home runs in 31 games and for his career hit .347.

The draft resumes at noon today with rounds three through seven and then finishes on Wednesday. There is a lot of work still to come.

“We still have 37 more picks,” Flores said late Monday.