Aging Gracefully, Yankees Paul Goldschmidt Is On Hall Of Fame Track
After suffering through what was clearly the worst season of his major league career in 2024, Paul Goldschmidt hit the free agent market for the first time in his career at age 37.
Crickets.
After making $26 million per year with the Cardinals from 2020-24, it was clear Goldschmidt was going to have to take a significant pay cut. After the process played itself out, that cut was over 50%, as he signed a one-year, $12.5 million deal with the Yankees.
I thought it was a wise investment for the Yanks, in part because advanced batted ball metrics looked a bit more kindly on Goldschmidt's 2024 efforts. And while his numbers - both mainstream and advanced - are by no means great this season, the Yanks are thanking their lucky stars each and every day that he was brought aboard.
Aaron Judge has been a baseball god this season, nothing less. But outside of him, the Yankee position player lineup has been a minefield this season, a sea of injuries and ineffectiveness. It's been players like Goldschmidt, Trent Grisham and Ben Rice that have offered Judge the bare minimum necessary support to keep them in front of the AL East.
The 6'2", 225, righthanded hitter has never done things the easy way. He was not a blue chip amateur prospect. He didn't sign until being drafted as a senior in the 8th round of the 2009 draft out of Texas State. He was drafted based on his performance - outside of his bat, he really wasn't believed to have major league caliber tools. What a misjudgement that turned out to be.
He hit from the second he put on a major league uniform with the Diamondbacks in 2011. And until last season, he didn't stop. A .289-.380-.507 career line with a 138 wRC+, 461 doubles and 370 homers among his 2138 hits, and 57.4 fWAR. It can argued very strongly that this is a Hall of Fame resume.
But it goes well beyond the bat. He's won four Gold Glove awards, and still moves well around the bag at his age. And then there's the baserunning/basestealing - this is actually my favorite, most underrated part of his game. Paul Goldschmidt has stolen 174 bases in his career, as many as 32 in a season (in 2016). But it goes beyond that - he has an 83.3% career success rate, one of the best marks in baseball history. It goes even beyond that, however - since 2020, he's 47 for 49 (95.9%). Sure, his speed has waned as he's aged, but he picks his spots and still carves out baserunning value for his team.
Now, Goldschmidt has slumped over the last couple of weeks, and his offensive skills are clearly in retreat from a fairly recent peak (he was the 2022 NL MVP). And the batted ball data backs this up. His overall average exit speed of 89.9 mph is his lowest mark since the truncated 2020 pandemic season. His 93.0 mph average line drive exit speed is the lowest of his career, and his 93.6 mph fly ball and 84.3 mph grounder average exit speeds are also firmly on the low side for him. Adjusted for exit speed/launch angle, he 'should be' hitting .264-.321-.438 for 'Tru' Production+ of 114.
So why is anything he's doing worth any significant level of attention? Well, most players hit a wall of some sort as they age - their K rate mushrooms, their batted ball authority plunges, etc., and they just go away. Goldschmidt is making some tangible adjustments to attempt to stay relevant.
His 18.2% K rate? His lowest ever. His 7.7% BB rate? Just above his career low from last season. He is looking for something to hit early in the count more than ever before. He does have some positives to show for it, like a 24.5% liner rate, his highest since 2020. He's actually hitting his fly balls (93.6 mph average exit speed) harder than his liners - which generally doesn't bode well for one's future. In the present, however, it's a sign of harvesting whatever power is left in his arsenal. Ditto his extreme grounder pulling tendency, something he hasn't shown since 2019. Goldschmidt knows the meter is running, and he's trying to squeeze every last bit of production out of himself before the bell rings.
He's certainly seen better days, but Paul Goldschmidt deserves credit for being an all-around professional as a ballplayer. The jury is out as to what level of contract he'll command in his next tour of the free agent marketplace in a few months. But that's an issue for another day - for now, he has work ahead as a steady rock in the middle of the Yankee lineup as they strive to reach the postseason.
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I feel like if we get ahead of that and have an approach like the [David] Fletcher kid when he was in Anaheim, we'll be good. 'Fletcher got no love in this game, and I'm like, every team needs three or four of those guys. If we can have three or four of those guys with some slug, we're going to put up some runs.' Fletcher's career K rate was 9.5%, though he never managed to produce a league-average OPS over a full season. These D-backs don't have that problem. All-Star shortstop Geraldo Perdomo's strikeout rate has been vanishing a little more every year, now down to 11.7%. He pairs that with a .357 OBP and 115 adjusted OPS, along with such a strong situational feel that Lovullo says he can tell Perdomo, 'I need at least a five-pitch at-bat here,' and he will execute. 'I've always had really good eyes and make contact with no power,' says Perdomo. 'As I get older, I think it's a reason I'm hitting the ball harder. I feel proud. 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'He's got the perfect approach with runners in scoring position: There's gonna be contact,' Counsell says of Hoerner, who's already amassed 3.3 WAR this season. 'It's really hard to strike him out. It's his elite skill. 'The ability to make contact is not an exciting trait as a hitter, but it's a valuable trait. It leads to runs getting scored.' And while the Tampa Bay Rays have shaved just 2% off their team K rate year-over-year, the addition of rookies Jake Mangum (13.4%) and speed merchant Chandler Simpson (9.6%) have given them a dynamic offensive attack. It's a decidedly postmodern look, one that might've seemed out of place in a pre-pandemic baseball world. And heck, it's not like the home run has vanished across the majors – the rate of 1.11 per team game is still 11th all-time. Perhaps what we're seeing is a generation of players realizing it's OK not to get too big at the plate, especially in an era where pitchers throw harder and nastier stuff with each subsequent season. And that the occasional shelving of the A swing can promote good habits and A+ outcomes for the team. 'It's understanding who you are as a hitter and fortunately for us, I feel like we have a bunch of guys who understand their strengths when they walk up to the plate,' says Ryas manager Kevin Cash. 'And right now, they're doing a good job putting that to use. 'Today's pitchers and today's hitters are very special, very talented. And what they do to counter each other year-to-year, game-to-game, at-bat to at-bat - you're seeing a really good product on the field.' The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
