Can Paul Goldschmidt Bounce Back to MVP Form in 2025?

Paul Goldschmidt is just two seasons removed from being named the National League’s Most Value Player, but since then, the first baseman’s abrupt fall from grace has kept him far away from any such conversations. The 37-year-old’s numbers dipped significantly in 2023, and last season, he posted the worst stats of his major league career.

“I didn’t play well most of the year last year, and there’s no excuses for that,” Goldschmidt told reporters on January 2, per MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. “That was on me. Hopefully, looking back, there was a lot of things I learned. I know there were a lot of things that I learned in that first half, some things that I did wrong and got exposed. I just wasn’t hitting pitches that for most of my career I’ve been able to connect on.”

After six seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals, Goldschmidt became a free agent at the end of the 2024 season, and signed a one-year, $12.5 million deal with the New York Yankees on December 30. With seven All-Star selections under his belt, the 2025 season will be Goldschmidt’s 15th in the majors — so will a change of scenery be enough to provide the reset he needs?

The Higher You Climb, the Harder You Fall

Even though the Los Angeles Dodgers didn’t think Goldschmidt would sign out of high school, they selected him in the 49th round of the 2006 MLB Draft at the insistence of scout Chris Smith, whose son was one of his high school teammates. Expectedly, Goldschmidt decided to go to college instead, and after three years of playing at Texas State University — where he set school career records in home runs (36) and RBI (179) — he was selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the eighth round of the 2009 MLB Draft.

Goldschmidt made his major league debut with the Diamondbacks on August 1, 2011, and after batting .250 with 8 home runs and 26 RBI in 177 plate appearances in his rookie season, he made his mark during the playoffs with a grand slam in Game 3 of the NL Division Series to extend Arizona’s postseason campaign. During his eight-season tenure with the club, Goldschmidt accumulated a .297/.398/.532 line with 209 home runs, 710 RBI, and 124 stolen bases in 4,708 plate appearances across 1,092 games, earning six consecutive All-Star selections (2013-18), three Gold Glove Awards (2013, 2015, 2017), and four Silver Slugger Awards (2013, 2015, 2017, 2018).

At the end of the 2018 season, the Diamondbacks exercised the option on Goldschmidt’s five-year, $32 million deal to lock him in for a sixth season, but just five weeks later, they traded him to the Cardinals. With the superstar due to become a free agent at the end of the season, St. Louis moved quick to sign him to a five-year, $130 million contract extension before Opening Day, covering the 2020-24 seasons and marking their largest deal in franchise history.

It didn’t take long for Goldschmidt to prove the Cardinals’ money was well spent. He finished the 2019 season with a .260/.346/.476 line, 34 home runs, and 97 RBI in 682 plate appearances, and despite missing out on an All-Star selection or awards haul, he was nominated for a Gold Glove for his .996 fielding percentage (the best among major league first basemen). He went on to win his fourth career Gold Glove Award in 2021.

By the 2022 season, Goldschmidt had well and truly established himself as one of the best — if not the best — first basemen in MLB, and he quickly showed that there was a lot more still to come. In 651 plate appearances in 2022, he posted a stunning .317/.404/.578 slashline (177 OPS+) with 35 home runs, 115 RBI, and 7 stolen bases, leading the NL in slugging and OPS, ranking second in RBI and OBP, third in batting average, and tied-fifth in home runs. His 12.1% walk rate placed him in the 92nd percentile of all qualified major league batters, while his 47.4% hard-hit rate put him in the 86th percentile.

In addition to winning NL MVP and the NL Hank Aaron Award for his 2022 campaign, Goldschmidt received the seventh All-Star selection of his career and took home his fifth Silver Slugger Award, giving him the MLB record for the most Silver Sluggers won by a first baseman.

Unfortunately, this career peak had a rather sharp drop on the other side.

In 2023, Goldschmidt hit .268/.363/.447 with 25 home runs and 80 RBI in 687 plate appearances, seeing his OPS+ drop to just 120. The following year, the first baseman battled to a career-worst .245/.302/.414 line with 22 home runs and 65 RBI in 654 plate appearances, recording a disappointing 26.5% strikeout rate and 7.2% walk rate to rank in the 21st and 38th percentiles of MLB batters, respectively. He finished the 2024 season with an OPS+ of 98, marking the first time in his career that he’d not reached triple-digits and a significant fall from grace since his 177 OPS+ just two seasons prior.

Goldschmidt didn’t make up for his offensive shortcomings on defense, either. He posted 0 Outs Above Average (OAA) and a Fielding Run Value (FRV) of 0 last season, while ranking in the bottom 1% of all qualified fielders in arm strength.

Ending his six-year tenure with the Cardinals on an undeniable low, Goldschmidt became a free agent after the 2024 season. He appeared in a total of 836 games for the team, batting .278/.360/.483 with 153 home runs, 477 RBI, and 45 stolen bases in 3,584 plate appearances.

Can Goldschmidt Bounce Back in 2025 With the Yankees?

Having signed a one-year, $12.5 million deal with the Yankees at the end of December, Goldschmidt is going into the 2025 season looking to revive his career — and he, for one, thinks he can do it.

“I think I can still play at a really, really high level,” he said at the press conference introducing him as a Yankee. “I’m a pretty simple hitter; I just wasn’t consistently doing that last year… I was just not performing well, but I think the good part of that is, I was able to learn from it and make those adjustments and be ready to go this year.”

Unfortunately, the major projection systems — including Steamer and ZiPS — remain unconvinced, all forecasting Goldschmidt to hit around the .250 mark this season. Steamer projects he’ll manage 24 home runs and 84 RBI in 147 games, while ZiPS expects 23 and 81 in just 136 games, but either way, both systems put Goldschmidt a long way from his 2022 numbers.

So, can the former NL MVP bounce back in 2025?

At 37 years old and coming off two consecutive campaigns of declining stats, Goldschmidt has a lot working against him as he goes into his 15th major-league season, but a comeback certainly isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Despite his struggles last year, there are multiple metrics that imply a return to form could be achievable, including his consistently high hard-hit rate and average exit velocity.

In 2024, 49.6% of Goldschmidt’s batted balls had an exit velocity of 95 mph or higher, ranking him in the top 8% of all qualified major league batters in hard-hit rate. Similarly, the average exit velocity of his batted balls last season was 91.2 mph to put him in the top 18% of batters. The year prior, Goldschmidt’s hard-hit rate and average exit velocity were 50.8% and 91.3 mph, and during his MVP-winning season in 2022, they were 47.4% and 90.8 mph.

It’s also worth noting that the second half of Goldschmidt’s 2024 season showed a significant improvement from the first half. After struggling to a disappointing .658 OPS in the first 98 games of the year, he posted a respectable .826 OPS through his final 56 games with St. Louis, including an impressive .920 OPS over the last 30 games.

According former-Cardinals hitting coach Turner Ward, this midseason improvement was down to Goldschmidt making things “as simple as he possibly could.”

“Over the last six weeks of the season, he got back to simplifying things,” Ward told Dan Martin of the New York Post in January. “Hitting off a tee and things like that. Over the course of last season, his swing got out of sequence and he tried to do too much. Personally, I have no doubt he can get back to being the hitter he’s been.”

The Yankees lost slugger Juan Soto to free agency at the end of 2024, and this season, they’ll need every ounce of power in their batting lineup to make up for it. After his shaky-at-best performance last year, signing Goldschmidt was a risky move, but if the seven-time All-Star is able to even approach the numbers that won him five Silver Slugger Awards, it will pay dividends.

Now it’s up to Goldschmidt. The Cardinals jersey is off and the Yankees threads are on — only time will tell if a change of scenery is enough to wake up his bat.