Sports Illustrated: Paul Goldschmidt has 11th-highest MLB trade value
Mar 24, 2017, 2:08 PM | Updated: 2:12 pm
This is a 2017 photo of Paul Goldschmidt of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team. This image reflects the Arizona Diamondbacks' active roster as of Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017, when this image was taken in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)
(AP Photo/Matt York)
The Arizona Diamondbacks won’t trade Paul Goldschmidt, but if for some strange reason they did, they could get a hefty return for him.
According to Jonah Keri of Sports Illustrated, Goldschmidt would command the 11th-best trade return in all of baseball.
Keri decided to rank players in order of their hypothetical trade value. Basically saying, which players would get the most return if every MLB team made every player available to trade.
Keri writes:
My favorite spring training story this year, by a mile, was Goldschmidt’s repeated self-flagellation. In 2016, the Diamondbacks’ first baseman hit .297/.411/.489 and ranked 11th among National League position players in WAR, seventh in stolen bases, fourth in runs scored, third in the league in on-base percentage and first in walks. Still, Goldschmidt was bitterly disappointed in his performance: “I honestly didn’t play as well as I needed to, I didn’t hit enough balls hard, and when you’re doing that, you’re not going to hit as many home runs. It wasn’t just home runs, there was a lot of other things I didn’t do as well, and that all falls on me.”
These are the standards you set for yourself when you’re one of the 10 best players in the league, a two-time MVP runner-up with three years of cheap control left who remains wildly underrated because the D-Backs’ previous management team couldn’t run a Wawa, let alone a Major League Baseball team.
Goldschmidt put up good numbers last season, and that’s not even including his 25 home runs, 33 doubles, and 95 RBI.
But compared to his usual pace, the 29-year-old had a down year in 2016.
In 2015, Goldschmidt hit .321 with 33 home runs and 110 RBI. Two years prior, the first baseman had career highs in homers (36) and RBI (125), all while hitting .302.
Goldschmidt has raked in the awards as well. He’s appeared in four MLB All Star Games, won two Gold Gloves, and won two Silver Slugger Awards.
Currently, Goldschmidt is playing under a team-friendly 5-year deal worth $32 million he signed in 2014. To put that in perspective, there are 11 MLB first baseman getting paid more annually than the D-backs star. But Goldschmidt’s cheap deal won’t last forever, and that could lead to the D-backs having to make some tough decisions in the near future.
