New Yankees first baseman Paul Goldschmidt would be the first person to admit that he had the worst season of an otherwise impressive career in 2024 with the St. Louis Cardinals.
On Aug. 24, his 123rd game of the season, the now-37-year-old was batting a paltry .226 with a .671 OPS, 19 home runs, and 49 RBI — the poster child of one of the most underperforming teams in the National League. It was a far cry from the production that the seven-time All-Star and 2022 NL MVP had made customary, slashing .294/.389/.520 (.910 OPS) with 162-game averages of 31 home runs and 103 RBI over the 12 previous seasons.
“I didn’t play well most of the year. There are no excuses for that,” Goldschmidt said during his introductory press conference on Thursday after signing a one-year deal with the Bronx Bombers. “That’s on me. Looking back, there were a lot of things that I learned in that first half, things I did wrong that got exposed. I wasn’t hitting pitches that, for most of my career, I had been connecting on.”
He simplified his game, made adjustments he labeled as both “mechanical with my swing” and “approach-wise,” and flashed some of his usual production down the stretch minus the power. He batted .327 with a .906 OPS across his final 31 games of the season, with three home runs and 16 RBI.
That stretch suggested that he will still be able to rank as one of the best offensive first basemen in the game.
“Learning from that and going through that process of trying to make those adjustments, I got to a spot in the second half where I played better,” Goldschmidt said. “I think I can still play at a really, really high level.”
A vintage version of Goldschmidt would be invaluable for a Yankees lineup that has attempted to address its depth issue, which was exacerbated when Juan Soto jumped ship to join the Mets last month. After losing the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games, they cut ties with first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who was unable to overcome a litany of injury issues, and replaced him with Goldschmidt, who will sit in the middle of the Yankees’ order alongside Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger; acquired from the Chicago Cubs to play center field.
The Yankees hope that there will be enough support for Judge to generate enough offense for a pitching staff that has received major boosts this winter in the form of Max Fried and Devin Williams.
“We have the talent. The expectations are high,” Goldschmidt said. “The players would all, I assume, welcome that… A team that was in the World Series last year was so close to winning it all; the expectations the franchise has every year, I’m assuming, will be the same.”
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