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AZ SnakePit Awards: Most valuable player - Paul Goldschmidt

In a stunning upset, underdog David Peralta pulled out an incredible victory over the hotly-favored Paul Gol... Oh, who am I trying to kid? It was Goldy, in a complete landslide.

By Jim McLennan
Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Well, this is the first unsurprised face of 2016. With a record-smashing 80% of the votes - no other candidate even reached double digits - Paul Goldschmidt is the 2015 Most Valuable Player for the Arizona Diamondbacks, according to the 'Pitties. It's the third consecutive award for Goldschmidt, and is a significant uptick on the vote he received at this point last year, when he fell short of an overall majority (though let's face it, winning MVP when you miss a full third of the season was still pretty impressive).

There were some concerns going in as to whether the broken hand suffered against the Pirates would have any kind of lingering effect on Goldschmidt's performance this season. And he did go 0-for-4 on Opening Day... But a multi-hit game followed in Game #2, and in the fourth contest of the year, he had three hits, including his first home-run of the season, and Paul was off to the races. He was staggeringly consistent: he had one calendar month with an OPS below .943 - less than a handful of other players in the majors had a season average OPS which reached that level.

Four of Paul's months fell between that and a 100 OPS points higher. And then there was May, where Goldschmidt was officially classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction, posting a line of .365/.476/.750, for an OPS of 1.226. That was the highest monthly split (min 20 starts) by any hitter for the Diamondbacks, since Luis Gonzalez's 1.350 in the much more offensively-inclined era of June 2001. Goldschmidt received for the season a total of 29 intentional walks, a new franchise record. The rest of the D-backs combined got 11, including those executed to face the pitcher. He got more IBB's than 11 teams, including the World Series winning Royals.

As usual, he destroyed left-handed pitching - it was a matter of wide regret, he was never given the opportunity to face Timmeh this season. But he clobbered righties to a .984 OPS as well, and that was just the way he operated. There was literally no weakness in his game. Bases empty? .976. Men on base? 1.038. In scoring position? 1.149. Even if you got ahead in the count, he was still lethal. The NL average OPS in that situation was .509. Goldy's figure in the same spot? .904. Throw him a first-pitch ball, and his on-base percentage went up to .511. Hell, he still batted .252 after giving the pitcher an 0-2 start.

It wasn't just at the plate that he excelled. Defensively, he was superlative at first-base, picking up a well-deserved second Gold Glove. And he even stole 20 bases for the first time in his career, and wasn't just running wild, doing so with a success-rate greater than 80%. No first-baseman had managed that double-bill since Ryan Klesko in 2001. All told, as previously documented, by bWAR he put up one of the best seasons from the position in the entire history of the National League, and also the best season, anywhere on the diamond, by an Arizona Diamondback position player.

Here's the full list of awards and winners this season. The category link goes to the nominees, the winner link goes to a more detailed discussion of the winners (save Goldy, since you're here already!).

The complete list of all winners, since the 'Pitties were founded in 2006, can be found here

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