Projecting Paul Goldschmidt

The 2018 Cardinals lacked a middle of the order threat; with Bryce Harper and Manny Machado on the market after the season, some believed that one of those two would be the targets of the front office. Instead, they traded for Paul Goldschmidt.

Goldschmidt is a perennial MVP candidate and that slugger the team was missing. According to my projection system, he’ll continue to play that way.

The system shows he’ll get into 145 games with 529 at bats; both would be his lowest total since 2014.

Switching to his slash stats, they appear to be in line with his career totals (2019 Projection: .297/.395/.533; Career: .297/.398/.532). He should sport healthy BABIP (.344) and ISO (.236); in fact they are the highest I have projected this season.

Counting stats are more of the same; 157 hits, 32 doubles, 3 triples, 32 homers. I was worried the extra base hits might decrease in Busch Stadium, but it doesn’t appear to be much of a factor. He’ll drive in 95 runs and score 95; both of those are under his 162-game average of 105 for each (granted, he’s not projected for that many games). The system doesn’t take into account who’s hitting around him, so if Matt Carpenter and Dexter Fowler are on base ahead of him, and Marcell Ozuna and Paul DeJong hit behind him, both those run numbers should be over 100.

Sabremetrics are also in his favor. The 4.4 WAR seems a little low (my system tends to project WAR on the low side), but his wOBA and wRAA are both healthy.

Really, outside of WAR, I don’t have an issue with any of these numbers:

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI
145	529	95	157	32	3	29	96

SB	CS	BB	K	Avg/OBP/SLG
12	3	82	124	.297/.395/.533

BABIP	ISO	WAR	wOBA	wRAA	K%
.344	.236	4.4	.382	41.6	19.90%

I’ll have another projection up soon.

Others in the series:
Dexter Fowler
Adam Wainwright