NEW YORK -- Paul Goldschmidt recalls sensing a different vibe as he bounded onto Yankee Stadium’s playing surface late last August, the Cardinals in town to play a three-game series against a World Series-bound Yankees club. The atmosphere felt important, the stakes high, and he collected three hits for the Cards that night.
Goldschmidt is looking forward to experiencing a full slate under those conditions, part of a revamped roster that has also added left-hander Max Fried, closer Devin Williams, outfielder/first baseman Cody Bellinger and hard-throwing reliever Fernando Cruz since the beginning of the Winter Meetings.
“I love it. I’ve always loved it,” Goldschmidt said. “All those big games are something I’ve loved; those are my best memories. Just to feel the energy walking out of the dugout, that was really fun. It was something I was excited about, and the energy is high every game there. It’s something I’m looking forward to.”
The 37-year-old Goldschmidt will take over duties at first base, replacing Anthony Rizzo, who is a free agent and not expected to return.
A seven-time All-Star, four-time Gold Glove Award winner and the 2022 National League MVP, Goldschmidt joins Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Bellinger as current Yankees with an MVP award on their respective mantles.
The 2025 Yankees will be the seventh team to have four MVP winners appear in a single season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“I’m very excited to be part of the franchise and the history they have,” Goldschmidt said. “Every baseball fan, especially as a kid, knows what they’ve been able to do and all the World Series titles – not just in baseball, but their prowess across professional sports. I was a teenager when they were winning all those World Series with [Derek] Jeter and all those guys.
“I’ve been pretty fortunate to play with a lot of guys that have spent some time in New York with the Yankees, and I think that stuck out in this process when it started to become time to make a decision. I don’t remember hearing a bad thing about the Yankees. All the players that have played there spoke very highly about everyone in the organization, the city and the fan base.”
Goldschmidt will look to rebound from a season in which he posted a career-low .245/.302/.414 slash line (a 98 OPS+) with 33 doubles, 22 homers and 65 RBIs in 154 games for St. Louis. He noted that ’24 was a year in which he batted in two-strike counts more than ever before.
The Yankees will be counting on Goldschmidt to carry forth some of the changes he made in the final two months -- he hit .273 with an .800 OPS from Aug. 1 on.
“I didn’t play well most of the year last year, and there’s no excuses for that,” Goldschmidt said. “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.”
That Cardinals-Yankees series in late August and early September provided a glimpse of Goldschmidt’s offensive potential -- and how the Yankee Stadium dimensions could aid his numbers. Goldschmidt went 7-for-13 (.538) in the series with four doubles and an RBI; in six career games in the Bronx, he is 12-for-26 (.462), including a 2013 homer off CC Sabathia.
“I’m a pretty simple hitter; I just wasn’t consistently doing that last year,” Goldschmidt said. “I was very honest with a lot of the media in St. Louis and anyone else who asked that. 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."
Goldschmidt has long been open-minded to incorporating new approaches. Early in 2023, Goldschmidt drove from Florida’s East Coast to Tampa to spend an afternoon with Judge, a pair of reigning MVPs in their respective leagues comparing notes. Goldschmidt said that DJ LeMahieu was also part of that session.
They hit in the cages that day, then hit it off over lunch, with Goldschmidt later gushing that Judge is not only “one of the best hitters on the planet,” but “one of the best people around.”
“That’s something I’ve always tried to do, find great hitters or great players and coaches, just to seek them out and try to learn from them,” Goldschmidt said. “That was great. We’ve just stayed in touch. He’s one of the best hitters in the world, maybe the best hitter. As a right-handed power hitter, he’s a guy that I’m very, very excited to play with, to get to see him work every day.”