This is probably a dumb question, but is there a way to take midi tracks and record them as .wav files so that the Midi file isnt pulling in the plug in all the time to save overhead on my computer?

You can bounce them to tracks, and then archive the MIDI track.

awesome, is that like a simple right-click operation?

MIDI has no audio information, so it should be processed by some VSTi (or hardware synth) to produced wav. The simplest way to save the overhead while keeping the possibility to change something later without big effort is freezing the synth ("*" button). That effectively create the WAV file and unload the synth.

Cool. Anything I can do to not have Addictive Drums take up 700MB of memory is a good thing.

How much RAM are you working with?

8gb. Processes for Sonar with nothing else running hovers around the 38% line so far but I'm only 2 tracks deep on a 16-24 track project and I'm thinking of step sequencing every kit piece separately so unsure if this will compound my problem. Trial and error, I suppose. Excited to try the suggestions made so far though.

Many folks use a single midi track for sequencing their drums, but have each kit piece routed to a separate audio track, in order to maintain complete sonic shaping control over each piece.
 
If you end up sequencing up each kit piece on a separate midi track, I would still suggest using a single instance of the drum synth, as it can happily respond to multiple midi tracks at the same time, for different kit pieces.  I do not not actually recommend putting each kit piece on a separate midi track though, because it becomes a giant nightmare to adjust things like a roll - if each strike is on a different track, I would go bonkers in no time.
 
Bob Bone