Paul Goldschmidt: A name to know
Feb 9, 2012, 6:36 PM | Updated: 7:33 pm
Paul Goldschmidt started the 2011 baseball season wearing
the uniform of the Mobile Bay Bears, the Double-A
affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
With a glut of players in front of him on the big league
roster to start the year (Xavier Nady, Russell Branyan,
Juan Miranda), it didn’t look like the D-backs would get
any
significant contribution from Goldschmidt during the
campaign.
That certainly didn’t turn out to be the case.
After terrorizing Southern League pitching for 30 home
runs in just 457 plate appearances, Goldschmidt joined the
D-backs after the club selected his contract from Mobile
on August 1, and the former 8th round draft pick did the
most with his opportunity.
In his second big league game, Goldschmidt hit a mammoth
2-run homer off of two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum
in a 6-1 win over the San Francisco Giants.
The powerful rookie would go on to hit 8 home runs in 156
at bats, and had a memorable grand slam in Game 3 of the
NLDS against the Milwaukee Brewers.
All of it leads to big expectations for Goldschmidt in
2011, both from the Diamondbacks and national pundits
alike. One writer, Paul White of USA Today, has placed
Goldschmidt at number ten on his Countdown of the 100
Names You Need to Know for the 2012 baseball season.
Says White:
His power is impressive, and he didn’t
disappoint with particularly long homers after his
promotion to the majors. He’ll be the starting first
baseman — with Lyle Overbay around for insurance — but the
key question for Goldschmidt is how he adapts to how he’s
pitched. He’s a big-swing guy who drastically reduced his
strikeout rate in the minors last year, then struck out 53
times in 177 plate appearance for Arizona.
Goldschmidt was the only Diamondback to appear on White’s
100-player list.
