Have the Yankees unearthed prime DJ LeMahieu?
Whereas the precise LeMahieu is checking off containers throughout a rehab task, the Yankees have obtained the identical kind of manufacturing — line drives smacked to all fields, few strikeouts and the second-most singles in baseball coming into play — from an unlikely supply.
Paul Goldschmidt, who led the Nationwide League in dwelling runs in 2013 and who crushed 35 homers as not too long ago as 2022, is perhaps reinventing himself.
Emphasis on may as a result of the pattern dimension nonetheless is sufficiently small to qualify as a blip in an extended profession, and maybe the developments start to vary because the season wears on.
However via a couple of month of play, the numbers themselves — the best line-drive fee in baseball and utilizing the other discipline as he by no means has earlier than — paint the image of a “professional hitter,” as hitting coach James Rowson known as him, adjusting for his age-37 season.
“He’s a guy who evolves as a hitter,” Rowson mentioned earlier than having a uncommon off night time (0-or-5) within the Yankees’ 4-2 series-opening loss to the Blue Jays in The Bronx on Friday. “He’s a guy who takes what the game gives him. And I think what he looks at is the quality of his at-bat — he wants to put a good swing on a good pitch.”
In line with Goldschmidt himself, the method has not modified.
“I just try to hit the ball and just kind of let it do what it’s going to do,” Goldschmidt mentioned. “But yeah, it’s been a little bit different, results-wise, but I haven’t really tried to do anything different.”
Coming into play, Goldschmidt owned a .383 batting common that solely trailed Aaron Choose in MLB. He was first within the majors in multi-hit video games (12). Earlier than Friday’s 0-fer that dropped his common to a still-impressive .364, he had an eight-game hitting streak that consisted of 12 singles, two doubles and nil triples or dwelling runs.
This isn’t the standard stat line of a slugging first baseman who entered this season with 362 homers however enters Saturday with simply 363.
However sure, the Yankees would completely settle for this elite average-for-power trade-off.
“I think if he can continue to do that for the course of the year, we really don’t know what that could be [in terms of end-of-year numbers]. It could be something special,” Rowson mentioned. “It’s not normal for him, but it’s something that if he keeps doing it, the numbers are going to pop up for him.”
Probably the most tangible change for Goldschmidt entails his aggressiveness. A hitter who has a well-earned repute for working pitchers entered having seen a career-low 3.73 pitches per plate look, down from a profession mark of 4.16.
He has seen fewer pitches as a result of he has attacked earlier in counts, swinging at a primary pitch in 34.3 p.c of at-bats after tallying a 24.7 p.c first-pitch-swing fee in his first 14 seasons.
Goldschmidt shrugged on the change and theorized it was a mirrored image of how pitchers have attacked him somewhat than how he has attacked pitchers: “It feels like I’ve got a lot of strikes to hit,” he mentioned.
He was not seeing a meaningfully completely different fee of strikes themselves, however he has been seeing extra mistake pitches than common. His 9.4 “meatball” proportion — which is what it appears like, pitches over the center of the plate — was the best of his profession.
The primary baseman batted cleanup, squeezed between Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger on Friday, however he usually has batted behind Choose. Possibly having a runner on base forward of him so typically has pressured pitchers into extra errors.
“I definitely think pitchers, they want to get ahead of me,” Goldschmidt mentioned. “But I haven’t really thought about it. Just trying to be ready every time I step in the box.”
He has produced as a lot offense because the Yankees might have envisioned whereas the manufacturing itself is way from what the Bombers might have envisioned.
Rowson mentioned he has heard for years concerning the skilled method Goldschmidt takes on the plate, and even when the outcomes have regarded completely different, the at-bat high quality has remained the identical.
“The slug, all those things — I think he’s at a point where [he knows] you don’t hit home runs; pitchers throw home runs,” Rowson mentioned. “He’ll hit some homers. But I think he’s in a great spot of not trying to do too much.”
