Paul Goldschmidt is already one of the greatest players in the relatively brief history of the Arizona Diamondbacks franchise. And as the star first baseman puts together a monster campaign in his fourth season with the St. Louis Cardinals, it may be time to start talking about him as a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate.
In his age-34 season, Goldschmidt is having arguably the best season of an already-decorated career, as he will enter play Tuesday as the National League leader in batting average (.343), on-base percentage (.423), hits (70), OPS (1.031) and OPS+ (196).
While Pete Alonso and Freddie Freeman are both having excellent seasons, we wrote last week that as thing stand right now, Goldschmidt deserves to be the starter at first base for the National League in the All-Star Game. Are All-Star Game appearances a flawed way to evaluate someone's Hall of Fame case? You bet. But it's one of the first things you see when you open up a player's Baseball Reference page, and if Goldschmidt is an All-Star in 2022, it will mark his seventh appearance in the midsummer classic.
Goldschmidt is also just eight home runs away from 300 in his career. He led the senior circuit with 36 home home runs in 2013, and his 292 career home runs are 10th among all active players. It stands to reason that before his career concludes, Goldschmidt could very well top 400 home runs.
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Still, this isn't someone whose case is going to be built around his home run total. Goldschmidt has a career slash line of .295/.391/.524 with a .915 OPS. Colorado Rockies' great Todd Helton should have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer from here, but considering he was up to 52% in 2022 -- his fourth year on the ballot -- he could usher in an era where first baseman are judged on their overall offensive production, rather than needing 500 career home runs to be seen as Hall of Fame candidates. If Joey Votto and the aforementioned Freeman are going to be Hall of Famers, it will be hard to not give Goldschmidt a series look.
Goldschmidt already has four Silver Slugger Awards and four Gold Glove Awards, so the only thing not on his resume that Votto and Freeman have is an NL MVP. To be fair, Goldschmidt finished second in NL MVP voting in 2013 and 2015, while posting a third-place finish in 2017. He's going to have his work cut out trying to edge out Manny Machado and Mookie Betts for the honor in 2022, but if he's able to do that, this figures to be the first of many national columns talking about how strong of a Hall of Fame case Goldschmidt will have.
The Nuggets
- After his game-tying grand slam Sunday, reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper is closing in on multiple home run milestones.
- To the surprise of no one, Nolan Arenado is putting together another monster year in the field (eight defensive runs saved, four outs above average), which is likely to end with him winning his 10th consecutive Gold Glove Award. The only players with more Gold Glove Awards at third base than the nine that Arenado already has are Hall of Famers Brooks Robinson (16) and Mike Schmidt (10).
- Mike Trout went through a career-worst 0-for-26 slump and is still slashing .276/.382/.575 with a .957 OPS and a 2.6 fWAR. He's just different.
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