Yankees' Paul Goldschmidt has impressed in spring training after down year in 2024

TAMPA, Fla. — In speaking about Paul Goldschmidt earlier in spring training, Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado couldn’t speak highly enough about the first baseman he spent the previous four seasons throwing to across the field.

“You get a professional, someone that takes pride in their work,” Arenado, an eight-time All-Star and 10-time Gold Glove winner, told Newsday.

The word “professional” gets a workout with Goldschmidt, 37, a description that followed him from Arizona — where he spent the first eight years of his career — to St. Louis, where he spent the last six.

Aaron Judge, a fan of Goldschmidt’s from afar for years, understands exactly why that is.

“Professional is exactly the right description,” Judge said Sunday morning before the Yankees fell to the Pirates, 4-3, in a split-squad game at Steinbrenner Field. “He’s a guy that has a plan going into every at-bat; he’s prepared for every single at-bat.”

Judge, a relentless preparer himself, not only studies his own swing but has made a point of closely watching other hitters’ approaches to see if there’s something he can learn or even incorporate into his own approach.

Goldschmidt does the same and, at his behest, actually visited with Judge at his home in Tampa after both players’ MVP seasons in 2022.

“He can work the count, hit it all over the ballpark to all fields,” Judge said. “He reads the game and knows what the situation calls for. I think that’s the biggest thing in being a professional. It’s like, ‘OK, it’s not about me just going up there trying to swing the bat.’ It’s maybe, ‘There’s a guy on second base and I have to move him over or get him in, or there’s a guy on third, I have to hit it to the right side.’ He knows what he needs to do in any of those situations, and it’s never really too big for him. He just goes out there and does it.”

New Yankees lefthander Max Fried, who spent the first eight years of his career with Atlanta, has had his share of success against Goldschmidt (3-for-12 with a double and four strikeouts).

“Just very much a professional,” Fried said. “He’s going to take what you give him, and he’s obviously so strong and able to make such solid contact, even when he’s just trying to go the other way, he’s a threat to hit a homer to the opposite field.”

Goldschmidt, who signed a one-year, $12.5 million free-agent deal over the winter, is a career .289 hitter with 362 homers and an .892 OPS. However, the seven-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner is coming off the worst season of his professional career, one in which he hit .245 with a .716 OPS.

“There’s no excuses for that,” Goldschmidt has said multiple times in spring training.

However, toward the end of the 2024 season, there were signs of the player he had been during most of his career. Goldschmidt had a .330/.370/.551 slash line in his last 30 games and slashed .293/.339/.503 in his last 43 games with the Cardinals.

Though results this time of year almost always can be treated as meaningless, scouts assigned to the Yankees generally have thought Goldschmidt has looked like his typical self in spring training.

Goldschmidt, who went 1-for-1 with two walks on Sunday, is hitting .323 with three homers and a 1.092 OPS in 13 games. One of those homers was a 447-foot shot that cleared the batter’s eye against the Tigers last Thursday in Lakeland.

Arenado theorized that the righthanded-hitting Goldschmidt, known for his ability to go to right-center, was hurt by playing at Busch Stadium. “He hits a lot of balls to right-center hard, and at Busch, they kind of ate him up a little bit,” Arenado said. “I think in New York he’s going to get rewarded a little bit more for those.”

“I agree,’’ Judge said.

“That’s one thing I’ve seen over his whole career is he can hit it all over the ballpark,” he added. “I feel like that right-center gap is something he wore out a lot during his time with the Diamondbacks, and I think we’re going to see a lot of that this year . . . Lakeland’s a big park, and he just drilled it over the batter’s eye. He’s just impressive.”