2 years agoFew people saw another MVP season coming from the Cardinals' 34-year-old first baseman, but everything fell into place for the big man as he slashed a brilliant .317/.404/.578 while adding 35 homers and 115 RBI to his illustrious career totals. He had some great hitters around him, allowing him to be really efficient in racking up runs and RBI (he finished fourth in the league in both categories), and he added seven steals in for good measure. The bad news was that Goldschmidt saw declines of the underlying statistical categories. His barrel rate (11.5%) fell by two points, as did his contact rate (73.2%), and he posted his lowest xwOBA since 2019. None of the numbers were bad, but declining nonetheless. It's not surprising to see a guy in their mid-thirties starting to impact the ball a bit less forcefully, so it's fair to expect that trend to continue. We're very unlikely to see Goldy's production fall off of a cliff in 2023, but he might be someone you want to avoid paying the MVP premium on with plenty of other enticing young hitters at the first base position this year. Even with the aging cooked in, Goldschmidt projects as a top-three first baseman, and we should be expecting another 30-homer, 100-RBI season with a strong batting average.--Jon Anderson