Strengths
He was a lot less valuable in 2014, but that's mostly because his leveraged 2013 performance (and opportunities) were spectacular (and unsustainable). Albert Pujols in his prime didn't sustain that standard (ie 7+ WPA), so I'm not about to expect it from Goldschmidt. His teammates were worse this year, the games weren't as close, and when he went down with a broken bone, his pace of non-leveraged performance (ie WAR) was actually at, or slightly ahead of, 2013. The team around him changed and the ball didn't bounce as favorably for him, but he was nearly the same, great player...making a million dollars per year.
-Diamondhacks
Even amidst the suck of the entire team this season, Goldy gave us a reason to watch every night.
-JoeCB1991
Weaknesses
My thinking is, yeah, he did decline in places from 2013. Maybe that isn't fair, as a lot of us, myself included, had impossibly high expectations, but we know he can do it, so the greedy aide of me isn't completely satisfied.
-imstillhungry95
But he did make more errors this year, while playing 50 fewer games. While not all of that might necessarily be on him directly, he just didn't look as sharp.
-Jim McLennan
Glove was a little shaky at start of season but bat remained potent despite nothing around him in order.
-desertice
Towards 2015
He'll bounce back in 2015 and cement his standing as the best 1st baseman in the MLB.
-StevenBurt
Jeff Bagwell is a comparable player for Goldy, albeit on the upside of his comps. Bags came back pretty strong from his broken hand issues.
-shoewizard
Goldy is the face of the franchise.
-Makakilo
Comment of the thread
Goldschmidt is the kind of player that would borrow your car for a couple of hours and return it to you with a full tank of gas and have had it washed and cleaned when it was returned to you. We give him some love, he gives us effort, performance and hope. Not sure what else you can ask of a baseball player.
-piratedan 7
The tally
- 5 - Highly satisfied: 73%
- 4 - Fairly satisfied: 23%
- 3 - Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied: 2%
- 2 - Somewhat dissatisfied: 1%
- 1 - Very dissatisfied: 2%
If there is anything at all surprising about Goldschmidt's ranking, it is how low it is. Perhaps that, more than anything else speaks to how highly he is thought of, and by extension, how high the expectations of him are. Goldschmidt is quickly finding his way into a new category of player for the Diamondbacks, one where anything less than a stellar all-star season is considered something of a disappointment. Despite being named to the National League All-Star team and putting up an OPS+ of 158, which was down by only two points from 2013, Goldschmidt was not ranked a nearly unanimous 5. In fact, he does not even rank the highest out of the players that have already received grades. Clearly, expectations of epic greatness played into his score, as did three spiteful votes of one and a single vote for two. I remain skeptical of the sincerity of those votes which dropped Goldschmidt down from a 4.72, which would have led the team, but all votes count nonetheless.
The Scoreboard
- Josh Collmenter: 4.71 (151 votes)
- Paul Goldschmidt: 4.64 (168 votes)
- Chase Anderson: 4.18 (161)
- Eury de la Rosa: 3.63 (91)
- Mike Bolsinger: 2.67 (117)
- Bronson Arroyo: 2.63 (125)
- Randall Delgado: 2.25 (122)
- Trevor Cahill: 1.07 (147)