Paul Goldschmidt is pumped to wear pinstripes this season. He has a chance to contend for a championship and join the list of greats who have played first base for the Yankees.
“It’s a huge honor, for sure,” Goldschmidt said Tuesday during his first presser of the spring. “The expectations and the tradition, the history here. It’s like maybe no other sports franchise in the world. So that’s exciting.”
If there’s been any sort of tradition at first base in a Yankees uniform of late, however, it’s been below-average production.
In some cases, like last season, that’s putting it lightly.
Since 2016, the final year of the Mark Teixeira era in the Bronx, Yankees first baseman have hit .235/.317/.416 with a 101 wRC+. No other team has had a lower batting average at that position in that span and the Yankees are bottom-three in on-base percentage and slugging percentage.
Yikes.
There’s been only two seasons (2019 and 2020) in that nine-year span where the Yankees had a collective OPS over .800 coming from those playing first base. Luke Voit was responsible for the bulk of that production.
Last year, Yankees first basemen had a combined OPS of .619, the worst of any team by a significant margin.
Yikes again.
Enter Goldschmidt on a one-year deal worth $12.5 million. He’s a former MVP and on a possible Hall of Fame track, but he’s 37 and coming off the worst single season of his career.
Speaking about Goldschmidt on Tuesday, manager Aaron Boone singled out the veteran’s durability, his work ethic, his track record and his talent on both sides of the ball. Cody Bellinger, another new face in pinstripes this spring, added that Goldschmidt is a “pro’s pro,” a sneaky good baserunner, a great defender and overall, a tremendous player.
Still, Goldschmidt had a .716 OPS in 2024 with the Cardinals. That’s almost 200 points lower than the OPS he had throughout his first 12 big-league seasons (.906). He had the highest strikeout rate and lowest walk rate of any single season in his career as well.
Normally, that would be a glaring red flag about a continued regression for a player past his prime.
Goldschmidt did finish that season on a high note, though.
He was batting .230/.291/.373 before the All-Star break last year — after struggling down the stretch in 2023 — and he proceeded to slash .271/.319/.480 over his final 62 games. As Goldschmidt put it, he simply didn’t play well for over a year before starting to recapture some of that old form.
“It wasn’t for a lack of effort,” Goldschmidt explained. “I was doing everything, different kinds of swings and all that. But this game is hard. The pitchers are good and you get off by a little bit, it can go downhill. Hopefully this will be a good thing in my career, getting to learn from that, especially coming here but there’ll be other things that pop up, there always is in this game. You never ‘figure it out.’ It’s just always a journey. And I’ll try to do the best I can, try to be consistent every day.”
If he can take the momentum from those last few months with St. Louis and carry it over into the beginning of this season with the Yankees, Goldschmidt will be a significant improvement from these last few seasons.
“We saw more in line with who he is in the second half of [last] season,” Boone said. “I think there’s reason to believe that could be the case. This is the guy that I think has gone to the post over 150 times every year of his career. He’s in impeccable shape. He’s that baseball gym rat. He’s out there working on different things in the field right now, little things that we think can help him even there. So he drinks up baseball. He really wants to be coached, wants to be pushed, wants to learn little things that he can apply to his game.
“He’s been a student of the game his entire career, as well as being, obviously, really talented. I’m really excited about him. We’re just trying to get him ready and look forward to what he’s going to provide on both sides of the ball for us.”
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