Archive for paul goldschmidt

Living in a world where Mike Trout doesn’t suit up nightly leads to some difficult questions about who might be the best player in his absence. Given their similar ages and trajectories, Bryce Harper is a decent choice. That said, we could consider a host of names, including Jose Altuve, Kris Bryant, Mookie Betts, Josh Donaldson, Clayton Kershaw, Manny Machado, Corey Seager… you get the idea. There are a lot of really good baseball players out there who aren’t Mike Trout and all have good cases for second-best player.

If we focus just on offense, the field changes a little bit. Bryant is probably still up there. Harper and Donaldson, too. Joey Votto has a pretty good case, Anthony Rizzo is still very good, and Aaron Judge is certainly a force this season. But if you combine track record, current performance, and expected future performance, Paul Goldschmidt might top them all.

In terms of hitting, patience, and power, Goldschmidt is the complete package. He’s got a career batting average over .300, on-base percentage over .400, and slugging percentage over .500. The only other active players to meet those standards are Mike Trout and Joey Votto. And while those numbers are subject to Goldschmidt’s inevitable decline, players who retire with .300/.400/.500 slash lines tend to end up in the Hall of Fame. Chipper Jones and Frank Thomas are two the most recent examples. And Goldschmidt might be having his best year with the bat. His .323/.448/.596 receives the benefit of his home park, but the 164 wRC+ plays anywhere.

Hitting isn’t the only aspect of Goldschmidt’s offensive profile, either. He’s an excellent runner, both stealing and taking the extra base on batted balls. The list of players with more steals than Paul Goldschmidt since the start of the 2015 season is a short one. They are (in order of total stolen bases): Billy Hamilton, Dee Gordon, Jonathan Villar, Jose Altuve, Starling Marte, Jarrod Dyson, and Rajai Davis. When you take into account runs generated from stolen bases and losses from caught stealing, the list of players better than Goldschmidt over the last two-plus seasons is even shorter: Hamilton, Gordon, and Dyson.

It’s not just on steals where he generates runs. He’s also in the top 10 since 2015 in Ultimate Base Runs (UBR), which measures extra bases taken. So far this season, his percentages of going first to third on a single (50%), first to home on a double (57%), and second to home on a single (63%) are all well above the respective league averages of 28%, 40%, and 60%. He’s done it without making an out.

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Earlier this week, Salvador Perez and the Kansas City Royals agreed on a second contract extension. In terms of financial need or justification for the Royals, there weren’t any compelling reasons for the Royals to sign Perez to another extension when his previous contract kept Perez under control through the 2019 season. Even with no extensions, Perez would not have been a free agent until after this season. In his analysis of the deal, Jeff Sullivan focused on the human element of the deal and being fair to Perez. Ken Rosenthal wondered if this would start a trend and named a few other players who might benefit from teams deciding to be a bit more fair. Perez is certainly not the first player to sign a very team-friendly deal, but he is also not the first player to be awarded a second deal despite having a number of years still left on his first contract.

In Rosenthal’s piece, he acknowledges that Perez was a “special case,” noting that the Royals catcher had recorded just 158 plate appearances at the time he signed the contract. That lack of experience led to a very low guarantee and the three team options that would have prevented Perez from reaching free agency for another four seasons. While acknowledging both the lack of need and the recognition of fairness, Rosenthal suggested six other players who might fit the same bill as Perez, although perhaps on a smaller scale given their larger guarantees: Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Rizzo, Jose Altuve, Chris Sale, Madison Bumgarner and Chris Archer.

On the whole, these types of extensions save massive amounts of money for teams, but we can take a look at the contracts Rosenthal discusses and compare them to Perez’s to see if they are actually close. The first few columns of the table below should be self-explanatory, but the last column, FA Surplus Value, might not be. To calculate the surplus value, I took current projections, applied standard aging curves, set the cost of a win at $8 million for this year along with 5% increases in years thereafter and compared the value of the projected production to the cost for free agent years only. For the players below, their arbitration salaries have also been at a discount, so if you want to include those values, feel free to add on another 20% or so (whichever number you feel like) to capture that discount as well.

Rosenthal did a very good job identifying the super-team-friendly contracts. Perez falls right in the middle of those contracts in terms of surplus value, but what makes his case different is the very low salary-level in relation to the other players — this, even if his options had been picked up. The top-four players on that list are massive bargains, but at least they will be paid around $10 million or more per year — double that of Perez. Altuve is in nearly the same boat as Perez in terms of salary, but he gave up just two years of free agency, which limits the surplus value.

Looking back through MLB Trade Rumors’ extension tracker, I identified players who were locked up to a second extension while still possessing multiple years on their first one. The idea: to find some sort of precedent for the Perez contract, or perhaps something closer to the situations of Sale, Bumgarner, Goldschmidt and Rizzo. Certain names come to mind immediately when considering players who’ve received a second extension while still playing on the first. Miguel Cabrera, for example. And Ryan Howard. These are classic cases of a team mistakenly extending players before they’d have to, but neither case is really similar to Perez’.

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Paul Goldschmidt is one of the very best hitters on the planet. Through the All-Star break, the Diamondbacks star first baseman wields a batting line of .340/.455/.610, giving him a 183 wRC+ — the fourth-highest such mark among qualified hitters. He was one of the game’s best hitters last year, too. And also the year before that. In his four full seasons in the league, he’s posted wRC+s of 124, 156, 155 and 183. In terms of WAR, he’s been the fifth-best player in baseball since 2013.

Goldy raked in the minors, as well. Before the D-Backs called him up for the stretch run in 2011, he hit an absurd .306/.435/.626 in Double-A. In his two previous minor-league seasons, he hit a similarly absurd .321/.392/.617. From 2009 to 2011, Mr. Goldschmidt ranked third, first and first, respectively, in his leagues by wRC+.

Yet, despite his minor-league exploits, Goldschmidt was never really thought to be much of a prospect. Best I can tell, literally nobody included him in a single top-100 list. Baseball America ranked him 13th and 11th in the Diamondbacks organization the two years he was eligible. John Sickels had him in the 21-30 bucket and then 9th on his organizational list. Baseball Prospectus had him unranked and then 10th. Here at FanGraphs, Marc Hulet had him unranked and 11th. Heading into 2011, the year he broke into the majors leagues, he ranked behind the likes of Bobby Borchering and Keon Broxton.

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Every year the dreaded sophomore curse rears its ugly head. Not even star shorstop Troy Tulowitzki of the Colorado Rockies was immune from its influence. His sophomore season was the only time in his five-year career that he dipped below 5.6 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) – and it was a big dip to 0.9 WAR.

With the 2012 Major League Baseball season about to begin there is understandably a lot of excitement over some of the 2011 rookies who appear poised for a true breakout year. Let’s try and sift through some of the names and see who might be in for a big year and who might be in for a big… disappointment.

Henderson Alvarez, RHP, Toronto: I have to admit that I thought Toronto was crazy for calling up Alvarez when they did in 2011 but he did not implode as expected. The 21-year-old hurler made a successful jump to the Majors with just 88.0 innings of experience above A-ball thanks to a fastball that can tickle the upper 90s while inducing a plethora of ground balls. Alvarez survived his first tour of duty in The Show with basically a two-pitch mix (fastball/changeup) and he’s working hard to improve his slider. If he can get the third pitch working, while also improve upon his command within the strike zone, Alvarez could see a big jump in his strikeout rate.

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If over a beer and a ball game, a buddy said, “Paul Goldschmidt will outhit Jason Heyward in 2012″, I would have assumed he had had one too many. With the release of Bill James‘ 2012 projections, the SABR legend said just that as the Diamondbacks first baseman is projected to produce a wOBA of .382.

Having scouted Goldschmidt in July, I came away believing he would take advantage of lesser pitching, but struggle with top flight velocity. If Goldschmidt hits to his wOBA projection, then I greatly undersold his overall hitting ability and he’s on the cusp of becoming one of the top-25 hitters in terms of wOBA in all of baseball based on final 2011 leaderboards.

Goldschmidt video after the jump

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Despite an early bounce from the postseason, it was a successful year for the Arizona Diamondbacks. The club reached the postseason for the fifth time in its relatively brief history (14 seasons) — and the franchise also saw breakout performances from the likes of starting pitchers Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson, as well as outfielder Justin Upton.

But how sustainable is Arizona’s recent success? Is the organization doomed to be a one-year wonder — or does it have the young talent to continue its assault on National League opponents? On first glance, the Diamondbacks appear to have a bright future.

Starting rotation

The emergence of Kennedy and Hudson has been key to the club’s success and the pair should be around for a while. Kennedy, 26, has found new life in Arizona after being cast off by the Yankees. He’s averaged more than 200 innings in the past two seasons and succeeds with merely decent stuff while also being a fly-ball pitcher. His 3.22 FIP in 2011 was more than a full run better than in 2010, when he posted a 4.33 FIP. While some regression wouldn’t be a shock — if Kennedy can continue to command his fastball like he did this season — he could continue to perform like a No. 2 starter.

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