It was quite a year for ‘America’s First Baseman’, leading St. Louis to a 93-win season and capping it off with the season’s Most Valuable Player award. While it was an underwhelming bow out for the Cards this October, Goldschmidt was the engine of the St. Louis lineup, leading the league in slugging (.578) and OPS (.981). What we’re going to focus on here however is his entire body of work. He defines consistency. He churns out an OPS over .850 in his sleep. Doing so in almost an under the radar way over the years. While the spotlight wasn’t on him necessarily in his days in Arizona, his time there didn’t go without immense productivity, amassing career numbers that hold up against most of the game’s superstars, past and present. And a handful of them stick out from the rest.
.997 Career Fielding Percentage
Before we dip into what he’s done with his bat, we have to talk about his glove first. It can be argued it’s been his biggest strength, averaging a better fielding % than the league average at first base in every year he has been in the league. It’s easy to overlook defense at the first base position being such a prevalent part of the game, but just 47 errors over 13,000+ innings manning first is hard to ignore. While many first baseman today often go back and forth between 1B and the DH spot, Goldy’s started over 1500 games at first, compared to just 40 at DH, proving a defensive backbone of every infield he’s been a part of on an everyday basis. That performance led to four Gold Gloves. winning three of them by 29 years of age, a phenomenal achievement all things considered knowing we’ve yet to even cover his hitting accolades. There’s little argument that Goldy’s been the best defensive first baseman since the turn of the century.
.917 Career OPS
There’s a handful of career numbers from his 12-year career thus far that could’ve been the headline for this section, but the OPS defines Goldy in a nutshell. Here was the shortlist:
- 6 seasons with an OPS above .900 (not including his .899 in 2016), and led the league in 2 of those years.
- 7 seasons with a SLG above .500 (.527 Career) and also led the league in those same 2 years as he led in OPS.
- 6 seasons with an OBP above .400. (.391 Career)
- 5 seasons of 90+ walks (4 of those 5 consecutively, 916 Career)
- 5 seasons with an AVG above .300 (.295 Career)
- 1750 Hits in 12 years
- 315 career HRs, 1042 RBIs
- Sneaky 147 Stolen Bases (Active leader)
As it stands, he has a higher career OPS than Mookie, Freddie Freeman, Bryce, Miguel Cabrera, Arenado, Kris Bryant, JD Martinez, Jose Abreu, Nelson Cruz, Jose Ramirez, Josh Donaldson, and George Springer. Even his career postseason OPS sits at .909 in 23 games. The guy is a machine, and speaking of machines, they very next man ahead of Goldy in career OPS? Pujols. His consistent top tier production earned Goldy five Silver Sluggers, and seven All Star selections. It’s a fact that if his name was taken out of this article and we went straight off of the numbers, whoever this guy is, has a Cooperstown bound resume
The Golden Goal
The obvious elephant in the room of his resume is of course the lack of a World Series title. St Louis is certainly on a positive track despite the early October exit this year. Him and Arenado as the core there is the best chance Goldy will have at a ring on the finger, and the supporting cast is very capable and deep. Is it what makes or breaks his Cooperstown ticket getting punched? Or does here merely have to maintain his high level of productivity? Something here tells us that we might be talking about him in HoF talks for a long, long time. In the end however, being remembered in that way is just as good, perhaps better in some cases (we love you Charlie Hustle). You’re a real one Goldy. A guy we shouldn’t take for granted and one of the best to ever play first.
