NEW YORK — Paul Goldschmidt went through a miserable first four months last year, including a career-worst 0-for-32 slide that ended with a May 11 ninth-inning single to avoid his first five-strikeout game.
“The feeling was just like, ‘Man, I’m better than this,'” the former NL MVP said Thursday, three days after finalizing a $12.5 million, one-year contract with the New York Yankees. “But you got to go out and prove it. I mean, if you don’t perform, then you know you’re not going to be playing. And I think that’s just the truth in this game and in life.”
A seven-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner, the 37-year-old first baseman left the St. Louis Cardinals and became part of the Yankees’ Plan B after they lost Juan Soto to the rival New York Mets.
Coming off a World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Yankees also have added left-hander Max Fried, closer Devin Williams and outfielder/first baseman Cody Bellinger.
Goldschmidt joins Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Bellinger to give the Yankees four MVPs.
His beard and mustache shorn, Goldschmidt answered questions for about a half-hour. He spoke of his excitement about his new team, the third of his big league career, and recalled a series at Yankee Stadium with St. Louis on Labor Day weekend last season.
“Just to feel the energy walking out of the dugout, that was really fun,” he said. “The energy’s high every game there.”
He spent his first eight seasons with Arizona and his past six with the Cardinals, slumping to a career-low .245 batting average last season with 22 homers and 65 RBI. He revived his numbers late in the season, hitting .283 with seven homers and 25 RBI from July 28 on.
“Some things that I did wrong that got exposed and just wasn’t hitting pitches that for most of my career I’ve been able to connect on, things that the opponents were doing, whether they were pitching me different or stuff like that,” he said.
Goldschmidt is a .289 career hitter with 362 homers and 1,187 RBI for Arizona (2011-18) and the Cardinals (2019-24). He hit .317 with 35 homers, 115 RBI and a .981 OPS in 2022, when he was voted MVP.
Goldschmidt spent a day with Judge working on hitting in January 2023 in Tampa, Florida, near the Yankee captain’s home.
“That’s something I’ve always tried to do is find great hitters or great players or coaches and just try to seek them out and try to learn from them,” Goldschmidt said. “We just stayed in touch. He’s one of the best hitters in the world, maybe the best hitter, and as a right-handed power hitter, a guy that I’m very, very excited to play with and get to see him work every day.”
Goldschmidt went to Driveline Baseball in Kent, Washington, ahead of the 2024 season for two days of mechanical analysis. Still, he hit 6 for 47 (.128) in spring training and .224 with 22 RBI in 52 games through May.
His upper and lower bodies were out of alignment on his swing. He got out of whack mentally, too.
“There’s times where maybe I was patient and pitchers were just getting ahead very quickly and I was just sitting there and an 0-2, 1-2 count,” he said. “It’s easy to look at somebody when they’re struggling and say what’s wrong. It’s not always easy to say how to fix it or for us to actually fix it or make those adjustments.”