Normally, when a team signs a player just two years removed from winning an MVP award, there aren’t many questions about how they’ll play in the near future.
But there is some doubt about how Paul Goldschmidt, signed to a one-year, $12.5 million deal by the Yankees to fill their first base spot in 2025, will fare in The Bronx.
After falling off from his 2022 MVP performance the following season in St. Louis, Goldschmidt cratered in the first half of last year before rebounding in the latter part of 2024.
At 37, just what kind of player are the Yankees getting as they look to boost their lineup in various ways in the wake of Juan Soto’s departure to the Mets in free agency?
“I didn’t play well most of the year and there are no excuses for that,’’ Goldschmidt said Thursday in a Zoom call.
He blamed his poor start, which included a .592 OPS as late as May 20, as well as an OPS that didn’t break .700 until late August, on being pitched to differently than he had earlier in his career.
“Things I did wrong got exposed,’’ Goldschmidt said. “I wasn’t hitting pitches that most of my career I had been able to connect on.”
While Goldschmidt didn’t get into too many specifics, the first baseman said he made changes both mechanically with his swing and in his approach at the plate to get himself into a better swing position.
Some of the results were promising, including a .774 OPS after May 12 — covering 117 games — as well as a .842 OPS in his final 43 games of the season.
“Something was a little off and I created bad habits,’’ Goldschmidt said. “It took me a while to get back to a good position to hit… It took me longer than it ever has to get back to it.”
The Yankees are counting on those changes to stick, as they’ve lost Soto — as well as Gleyber Torres — from last year’s lineup and so far replaced them with Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger.
Goldschmidt said he watched the Soto sweepstakes and was asked how this year’s lineup looks at this point in the offseason.
“We’re gonna find out,’’ Goldschmidt said. “We definitely have the talent. The expectations are high… This team was in the World Series last year and was so close to winning it all.”
They got there in large part due to Soto’s dominance, as well as Aaron Judge’s in the regular season.
What the Yankees didn’t get much of was production out of first base, where Anthony Rizzo, DJ LeMahieu and Ben Rice helped combine for the worst OPS in the majors from the spot.
A bounce-back season from the right-swinging Goldschmidt, as well as the left-handed Bellinger, coupled with the additions to the pitching staff of lefty Max Fried and closer Devin Williams, would go a long way in getting the Yankees back to the top of the American League.
But as they saw with Rizzo, relying on a resurgence from players well into their 30s can be dangerous.
Unlike Rizzo, though, Goldschmidt has stayed healthy, even at this point of his career. And some of his recent advanced metrics indicate he hit into some bad luck last season.
He figures to be at first in 2025, with Bellinger possibly moving there from the outfield the following season, but Goldschmidt isn’t ruling anything out.
“I don’t know how long I want to play,’’ Goldschmidt said. “I want to play at a high level. It’s frustrating to not play well.”
And even when he struggled a year ago, Goldschmidt believed he had more left.
“I still felt like, ‘Man, I’m better than this,’” Goldschmidt said. “That was my feeling last year, but you’ve got to go prove it. If you don’t perform, then you’re not gonna be playing.”
For a team with championship expectations, that’s especially true.
Goldschmidt, a seven-time All-Star and solid defender, has never made it past the LDS in the postseason and said his “top priority” in looking for a new team in his first foray into free agency was an opportunity to win a World Series.
A return, or something close to it, to his 2022 form, would help Goldschmidt and the Yankees get there.
