From Bryan Hoch:
Two offseasons ago, Paul Goldschmidt made a three-hour drive across the state of Florida for a chance to compare notes with one of his favorite stars in Aaron Judge, a couple of reigning Most Valuable Players huddling near the Yankees’ spring home in Tampa, Fla.
Goldschmidt and Judge hit in the cages that day, then hit it off over lunch, with Goldschmidt later gushing that Judge is not only “one of the best hitters on the planet,” but “one of the best people around.”
They’ll have more opportunities to work together this coming season. Goldschmidt has agreed to a one-year, $12.5 million deal with the Yankees, a source told MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. The team has not confirmed the deal, which has no options attached.
They have somehow gotten OLDER at first base with Anthony Rizzo succeeded by the 37-year-old Goldschmidt, who will be 37 throughout next season.
I don’t like it, but I get it. They are trying to walk a fine line between competing in 2025 and keeping the books clean so that they can sign Kyle Tucker for 2026 and beyond, and I think that that makes a lot of sense, honestly. So I’m not AGAINST the idea, but ooph, I sure don’t like it. Goldschmidt had his worst season by far at age 36, but he’s going to rebound at 37? Come the fuck on. Josh Donaldson was coming off a VERY GOOD season (.827 OPS) when the Yankees acquired him, and he fell completely off the cliff (.687 OPS), and that dude was a year YOUNGER than Goldschmidt!
Goldschmidt has gone from a .981 OPS to a .810 OPS to a .716 OPS in the last three seasons. Gee, that sure looks like a great trend, huh?
In his defense (oh, by the way, his defense isn’t good any more, either. He was once a Gold Glover, but as we have seen with Rizzo, once the defense goes, it fucking GOES), Goldschmidt DID hit well (120 OPS+), in the second half of 2024 after a REALLY bad start to the season, so maybe the first half of the season was a fluky bad slump. Secondly, he should help against lefties, which the Yankees have struggled mightily against recently. He also gives them a rare righthanded pinch hitter late in the game, if need be.
A lot really turns on whether they actually bring in Bregman or not. I’m wary about any longterm contracts this offseason, since all of the best dudes look like they are the worst types of guys to give longterm deals to, and now that they have Goldschmidt, it seems like they are out on the only guys who might have outright GOOD offensive seasons next year (Teoscar and Santander), but I don’t think that that is crazy, as I wouldn’t want them to go longterm on those guys, either. So, no, Bregman is really the play.
Nolan Arenado is a possibility, as well. People mock the idea of adding BOTH washed up Cardinals, and I get that, but on the Cardinals, they were the #3 and #4 hitters. On the Yankees, they’d be the #5, 6 or 7 hitters. It’s a big difference. But, yeah, unless Cashman picks up a really good third baseman or second baseman, this offense looks VERY MUCH worse than last season at the moment. It’s probably something like this right now…
Jazz 3B/2B (L)
Judge RF (R)
Bellinger LF/CF (L)
Stanton DH (R)
Goldschmidt 1B (R)
Dominguez CF/LF (S)
Wells C (L)
Volpe SS (R)
Waldo/LeMahieu 2B/3B (R)
Will Judge set a record for more intentional walks?
Featured image is a walk-off home run Goldschmidt hit last year.
Ugh. Sad day. I loved me some Rickey.
Yeah, very sad.
one of a kind
I’m good with it. Probably the best move out there, all things considered. And it’s not that crazy unlikely he’ll have an outright good year. It’s not the MOST likely outcome, but it’s not outlandishly improbable.
And the fact that we see players who have had bad seasons after good seasons in their thirties doesn’t mean there aren’t players in their thirties who have had good seasons after bad seasons.
concussed rizzo was so bad, did everyone forget?
I have no problem, far better than a multi-year deal with a Pete Alonso.
i’m with you. they’re spending money way more efficiently.
i disagree that the offense will be worse than last year, and they still have a bunch of money to spend under hal cap.
they were dead last in ops from first 2024. 25th in left. 19th at 3b.
it’s difficult to replace juan soto but it’s not hard to imagine going to average at these positions could have them scoring about as many runs. plus the pitching is better.
Soto had a monster year last season. He’s going to be very hard to replace, even if they get better at positions that they sucked at. The only real path to improving is if Dominguez is a stud as a rookie, and Wells and Volpe both improve. It’s not going to be because Paul Goldschmidt is a 1.6 win player instead of getting 0.5 WAR out of first base, or because Bellinger’s 2.5 wins are an improvement on Verdugo’s 0.8 WAR.
Now, if they add Bregman and his likely FOUR wins, that goes a long way to making things better, true.
when i look here it shows they got -1war out of first. If goldschmidt is a 2war player that is a huge swing. and while soto was a monster last year there’s no guarantee he would do it again next year. if he goes from 8 to a more demi godlike 6.5 that’s totally possible anyway even if he was in pinstripes.
i’m just a fan that’s been reading this site since its inception, not an mlb gm but i think there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the well rounded approach.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/team_compare.cgi?request=1&year=2024&lg=MLB&stat=WAR
A replacement level team is about 50 wins. So you want to be able to make up 50 wins on top of that. Last season, the Yankees got 30.8 WAR out of their position players, and 17.8 out of their pitchers. That would come to about 98 wins, of which they underperformed due to Holmes blowing a record number of saves, so they won 94 instead.
They’ll certainly hope that they’ll up that 17.8 with Fried and Williams, but Belli and Goldschmidt are only getting the position player to about 25 or so. That’s a big step down. They probably project in the low 90s now, which is enough to probably make the playoffs, at least. But I’d obviously prefer more.
following up, the yanks got 1.3 out of verdugo in left while the cubs got 2.7 with bellinger at first and the bigger penalty for the less important defense iirc.
to sum up, i think they were a high 80s low 90s win team with a full season of cole and fried before the additions of belli and goldi.
getting a 3b or 2b remains important but the departure of soto is being overstated compared to the moves they’ve made already and im so grateful to not have to watch those terrible routes for the next 15 years or clog the dh spot.
can you fire up CAIRO to curb my enthusiasm because i feel good!
He’s not replacing Tino and it’s a one-year deal. He needs to be an improvement on a historically bad 1B tandem last year. Don’t love the guy but his BABIP was down last year and he hit with a bit more authority after the ASB. This team is shaping up to be better than the 2024 version.
We did our Christmas tonight and my girlfriend made me an Aaron Boone voodoo doll. It’s … going to get a lot of use this year.