JUPITER, Fla. (KMOX) - After just a few days of seeing Paul Goldschmidt in action at St. Louis Cardinals spring training workouts, manager Mike Shildt has already witnessed the "gold standard" that so many people told him about.
"I believe the people sharing this with me are credible and a lot of times the hyperbole doesn't meet what's real, but in this case it exceeds it," Shildt says. "He's come in and been unbelievably engaging, thoughtful, proactive, he's really smart and he's really dedicated to what we're doing and how we're doing it."
Shildt described his new first baseman as being built "somewhat out of central casting" as a member of the Cards organization and being the one piece they were missing from 2018.
"Clearly to a degree we just needed a little bit more," Shildt says. "Good news is (we had) 88 wins and a good part of that group is back, then you add Paul Goldschmidt who is, like you said, one of the top-five players in baseball."
Shildt says before Goldschmidt came to camp, the 33-year-old had already spoken to Stubby Clapp about baserunning, Jeff Albert about hitting, as well as third base coach Oliver Marmol and Shildt says most of those conversations were started by Goldschmidt himself.
One of the first things he talked to Shildt about was "what are we going to do to win a World Championship."
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