Let’s take a moment to appreciate Paul Goldschmidt. It’s hard to believe a player of his caliber could possibly be under appreciated, but in 2015 Goldschmidt hasn’t gotten the attention he deserves. While Bryce Harper and Mike Trout have (rightfully) dominated the MLB headlines this season, Goldschmidt has had arguably the best season of the bunch.
It’s a shame that Goldschmidt’s talents must wither away in Arizona. Despite his best efforts, the Diamondbacks really haven’t made any noise in the playoff race since they won the NL West back in 2011. As I wrote about back in April, the Diamondbacks and Goldschmidt’s best option may be for the team to trade him. While the Diamondbacks have developed a bit of a reputation over the years for trading away their promising players too soon (Justin Upton, Trevor Bauer, etc) this is different.
When the team traded young stars such as Upton and Bauer, they were in the midst of being a competitive team. The Diamondbacks of 2011 were a well put together group who appeared to have many good years ahead of them. A few bad trades and signings later and the team struggles to reach .500 despite having one of the five best players in baseball. Even Goldschmidt can’t make this team competitive. Their prospect pool has improved (see Swanson, Dansby) but help doesn’t seem to be on the way quick enough. Trading Goldschmidt would help both sides.
But back to Goldschmidt himself. In the midst of what will be another 6+ WAR season, he is leading the league in a number of important categories. Batting Average (.341), RBIs (83), walks (88), and On Base Percentage (.457) have all been Goldschmidt’s bread and butter this season. As a result his OPS sits second in all of baseball (behind only Harper) at 1.041. And in terms of wRC+ he sits in the top four alongside Harper, Trout, and Nelson Cruz. No surprises there.
These numbers are not all that surprising coming from Goldschmidt. After all he did come up just shy of the triple crown in 2013 (only losing in batting average interestingly enough). But in an era when being 27 is no longer considered young for a star, Goldschmidt’s incredible talent often goes unnoticed. Of course it doesn’t help that he plays for a non-contender, but it’s easy to forget about him while most media focus solely on the likes of Harper, Trout, Correa, Bryant, and other sub-25 superstars.
Over the last few years, Goldschmidt has in some ways become the poster-boy for an age old question: should the MVP be given only to players whose teams make the playoffs or at the very least are in playoff contention? Goldschmidt’s teams haven’t been in postseason contention for a long time, and despite leading the league in HRs and RBIs in 2013, he still only finished 2nd in NL MVP voting. This isn’t to say that Andrew McCuthchen wasn’t a worthy winner (he certainly was as he led baseball in WAR), but it does make one wonder, what must Goldschmidt do to finally earn the most coveted individual award?
The remainder of this MLB season is going to present a lot of story lines. Will the Mets pull out the NL East? Can Toronto continue tearing up opposing pitching? Will the Cubs and Astros both find a way into the postseason? But none of these questions between now and the World Series will involve the Arizona Diamondbacks. Except for possibly one: who will win the NL MVP? Paul Goldschmidt will help answer that question soon enough.
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