Every January I roll out predictions for the ºüÀêÊÓƵ sports scene’s upcoming calendar year.
Some hit. Some miss. This year, one of my misses has become a quiet hit for the Cardinals.
You won’t find the Cardinals celebrating it, but their offseason decision to press pause on a Paul Goldschmidt extension many once viewed as inevitable continues to pay off. I didn't think the Cardinals should rush the unnecessary extension. But I was convinced they would. I was wrong. The Cardinals, it turned out, agreed waiting was right. They're in a better spot now because of it.
If you are a Goldschmidt optimist — and I still prefer to lean that way because of the first baseman’s career of excellence and his determination to figure out how to save this season — then you are betting on a potential Hall of Famer salvaging a career-worst first half and helping the Cardinals make a postseason push. Get into the bracket, and Goldschmidt's frustrating age-36 season can truly begin anew. That's the postseason's gift.
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The Cardinals emerged from their All-Star break in playoff contention despite league-average (at best) offense from star third baseman Nolan Arenado and below league average production from Goldschmidt. If one or both of those guys get going? The Cardinals could go places.
If you are a pessimist and feel like the once dynamic duo of Goldschmidt and Arenado can’t rebound in a meaningful way and that the Cardinals won’t go far if that is the case, well, you have plenty of fair data to build your case. On the topic of Goldschmidt, though, you arrive at the same destination as the optimists. No one can see this one any other way.
The Cardinals made a 2024 Ryan Helsley level save by declining to pay Goldschmidt handsomely into future seasons before seeing how this one transpired.
One really rough season to end what has been a great contract isn't very bad at all, in the grand scheme of things. And it's certainly a whole lot better than one really rough season starting out the first year of a brand new deal. The Cardinals did the right thing. Credit, too, goes to Goldschmidt for not raising a stink about his expiring contract. Some wouldn't have handled an approaching free agency so professionally.
The Cardinals' approach kept them from competing against themselves. It valued data over emotion. It's a different method than the Cardinals took with some beloved star players in the past, and what has happened since should embolden the team to employ the approach more often when legacy and the hope of seeing certain players finish their careers in a Cardinals uniform attempt to cloud the mind.
Trading for Goldschmidt entering the 2019 season was a massive win for the Cardinals. So was quickly signing him to his first Cardinals extension, one that saw him claim his first career MVP award. But signing him to another extension before getting a sense of what this $26 million season was going to look like would have meant not only paying for past production but also ignoring some concerning numbers.
It's the same route that got the Cardinals burned when they extended Matt Carpenter before he returned this season on a much more affordable single-season deal. If overlooking Carpenter's decline was one of the front office's biggest extension flops, not overlooking Goldschmidt's could go down as one of its better recent business decisions.
Since last June, Goldschmidt over a span of a team-leading 844 plate appearances has averaged .243 with a .320 on-base percentage and a .392 slugging percentage. His on-base plus slugging percentage of .712 during this time ranks 11th among Cardinals who have at least 100 plate appearances. Zoom out and Goldschmidt since last June is at risk of falling out of baseball's top-100 OPS producers among qualified hitters during this span. He exits the All-Star break ranked 90th on that list, with his .712 OPS over the past calendar year and then some found him between first-base names like Jake Cronenworth (.722) and Josh Bell (.710). Not terrible players. But not among the most feared in the National League, either. Which is where Goldschmidt was, without question as the 2022 NL MVP. Things changed. Fast.
Fortunately the Cardinals positioned themselves to watch Goldschmidt’s 2024 second half with clear eyes. Theoretically, they could even entertain trade-deadline discussions with teams that see value in Goldschmidt as a rental bat, though that seems unlikely for the Cardinals, especially when they are in a postseason position.
Point is, they didn’t unnecessarily back themselves into a costly corner. And if Goldschmidt rallies and they want to bring him back in 2025, they still can. For a discounted price compared to what they would have spent last spring.
Few teams make the business of baseball personal. The Cardinals have been one of the remaining holdouts. It can be endearing. It can also be costly. Especially for a team with a strict budget.
When Adam Wainwright retired, the Cardinals were offered a chance to do things a little differently moving forward.
Wainwright, after Yadier Molina, represented a potential pause point on the legacy run of players whose wire-to-wire Cardinals careers made it hard to focus solely on forward-looking projections of future production. More players like that could present themselves in time. Having them should be the goal of any organization that wants to draft and develop internally produced stars.
But it's no knock on Goldschmidt or Arenado to refrain from cramming them into the legacy box. They weren't produced from the Cardinals pipeline. They were acquired, and excellently so, to help patch that pipeline's leak. They both arrived in their 30s, well into careers that present compelling Cooperstown cases. Despite their admirable dedication and impressive seasons here before this shared frustrating one, they have not driven the Cardinals deep into unforgettable postseasons.
There always has been and can continue to be a difference between great players who play for the Cardinals and Cardinals legends. The latter invites legacy accommodations. The former, less so.
The Cardinals played this one right, regardless of who who turns out to be right about this season between the pessimists and the optimists.