As a high school senior and Astros fan growing up near Houston, Paul Goldschmidt was watching from his center-field seat in Minute Maid Park when Albert Pujols smashed one of the signature home runs of his career. It came against Astros closer Brad Lidge in Game 5 of the 2005 National League Championship Series.
On Thursday, Goldschmidt, 35, became the first St. Louis Cardinal since Pujols in 2009 to win the N.L. Most Valuable Player Award. The years melt together, but special moments stand out.
This was a career year for Goldschmidt, who adds his first M.V.P. Award after a summer in which he was Pujols’s teammate during the latter’s homecoming tour de force for the Cardinals, who won the N.L. Central. Goldschmidt received 22 of the 30 first-place votes, while a pair of standout third basemen finished behind him: San Diego’s Manny Machado (.298, 32 homers, 102 R.B.I.) was second with seven first-place votes, and Goldschmidt’s St. Louis teammate Nolan Arenado (.293, 30 homers, 103 R.B.I.) was third with one.
Goldschmidt said that he responded to congratulatory texts from William O. DeWitt Jr., the Cardinals’ owner, and John Mozeliak, the team’s president of baseball operations, by telling them that he was “very proud I was able to do it in a Cardinals uniform and carry on the tradition.”
“I think that’s something we don’t take lightly here in St. Louis,” Goldschmidt said in a telephone news conference after the announcement. “The fans don’t take it lightly, the employees, players, coaches. The tradition has been set here and there’s an expectation of greatness and of championships. You feel it every day and it’s a great feeling. You want that expectation that good is not good enough. You want to be great.”
As late as Sept. 1, Goldschmidt was challenging to become the first N.L. player to win the league’s triple crown since another Cardinal, Joe Medwick, whose nickname was Ducky, did it in 1937. A September slump scotched his chance, but Goldschmidt wound up finishing second in the N.L. in R.B.I. (115), third in batting average (.317) and tied for fifth in home runs (35).
As it was, he led the league in on-base plus slugging percentage (.981) and, using Baseball Reference’s formula, in offensive wins above replacement (7.5). His O.P.S. was 63 points higher than that of his next-closest competitor, the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman (.918). During one stretch covering May and June, Goldschmidt reached base in 46 consecutive games. He called 2022 not only his best season statistically, but added that “it was the most fun year I had as well, and for those two to line up is something very special.”
For Goldschmidt, the award caps his spectacular season and is a breakthrough career achievement. He finished second in M.V.P. voting in 2013 to Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen and second again in 2015, that time to Washington’s Bryce Harper. He also finished third in 2017 (behind Miami’s Giancarlo Stanton and Cincinnati’s Joey Votto) and sixth in 2018 and 2021.
“It’s a great story line, but I never felt that I was missing something,” Goldschmidt said. “I felt I’ve had some great years throughout my career and some other guys played better than me, but to finish second or third or in the top 10, that’s a great year. I didn’t feel like I needed to prove anything or missed out on anything.”
While Goldschmidt glittered throughout the season’s first five months, the final weeks tempered what could have been an even more memorable campaign. Following a five-R.B.I., two-homer game against the Cubs on Aug. 25, he led the N.L. in batting average and R.B.I. and was only one homer behind Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber for the league lead. But over his final 27 games, Goldschmidt batted .245 (23 for 94) with two homers and 10 R.B.I.
The cooling down continued into his team’s brief, two-game wild-card sweep by the Phillies. Goldschmidt was 0 for 7 with four strikeouts as the Cardinals were eliminated. Three of those strikeouts came with at least one runner aboard, including in the eighth inning of Game 2 after Lars Nootbaar walked and Pujols singled with the Cardinals trailing, 2-0, and trying to save their season. (M.V.P. voting is conducted after the regular season but before the postseason begins.)
“Because I ended the year not playing well it is kind of weird, and I think that’s why the playoffs hurt so bad,” he said. “I didn’t get a hit in the playoffs and I came up with guys on base. I feel like if I did the job we could have won that series and gone on and had a chance to win. But that didn’t happen.”
In reviewing the season and looking ahead to 2023, he said, “sometimes it’s not what you did wrong and improving on it, it’s what you did well and how can I repeat that.” He started working toward 2023, he said, within days of the Cardinals’ elimination and is mapping out a plan for next season with Turner Ward, who was promoted to hitting coach from assistant hitting coach by the Cardinals after the season.
Though the playoffs did not turn out as Goldschmidt would have liked either individually or for the team, the Cardinals in all likelihood wouldn’t even have been playing in the postseason without his efforts. And this month, he is racking up honors. Goldschmidt won his second N.L. Hank Aaron Award as the league’s best hitter and his fifth Silver Slugger award. That is the most by any first baseman since the award was instituted in 1980.
After 12 seasons in the majors, the past four with St. Louis, Goldschmidt’s 1.047 O.P.S. against left-handed pitching ranks third in Major League Baseball history among those with at least 750 career plate appearances. He trails only Frank Thomas (1.083) and Manny Ramirez (1.060) in that category. This summer, he moved past one of his heroes from his childhood near Houston, the Astros Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell (1.023).