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Paul Goldschmidt Is Getting Better With Age

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8 months ago

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The cycle for a major league hitter has been well established for decades. He improves rapidly in his early 20s, peaks around 27, perhaps holds that for a few years and then begins a slow decline.

And then there’s Paul Goldschmidt.

Goldschmidt was a fine player for the first part of his career with the Arizona Diamondbacks, making six All-Star teams. His peak years, as you might expect, ran from age 25, when he led the league in homers and runs batted in, through age 30.

But when he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals after the 2018 season, some of his numbers began to drop. While he still provided a great deal of value, he stopped making the All-Star team.

His batting average stayed close to .300, and his homer totals around 30, but he began slipping elsewhere, notably in walks. His on-base plus slugging percentage, nearly always over .900 in Arizona, slipped below that figure for three straight years.

This season has been a different story. Through Wednesday, Goldschmidt was leading the National League in the trinity of statistics, batting average (.332), on-base percentage (.412) and slugging percentage (.611); the batting average and slugging numbers were career highs. He already had 25 homers — six short of last year’s full season total — and he returned to the All-Star Game for the first time in four years.

His O.P.S. was 1.023, another career high, and trailed only the American Leaguers Yordan Álvarez of the Houston Astros and Aaron Judge of the Yankees. Goldschmidt also ranks second to Judge in Baseball Reference’s version of WAR for position players. And he has done it while playing Gold Glove-level defense at first base.

All of this has come at age 34, a time when most players have begun their decline. It has been 16 years since a player ended his 34-year-old season with an O.P.S. as high as Goldschmidt’s: Manny Ramirez had a 1.058 O.P.S. for the 2006 Red Sox. (Mark McGwire’s 70-homer season in 1998, which produced a 1.222 O.P.S., ranks first among players in their Age-34 season.) And Goldschmidt’s big Age-34 season has notably come at a time when baseball has far more stringent testing for performance-enhancing drugs.

The big season has accelerated Goldschmidt’s climb up the career lists, with the first baseman passing 300 homers, 1,000 runs and 1,000 R.B.I. this season.

“When you drive the ball as well as he does and you hit for power, hit for average and are a well-rounded hitter — and not just hitting .220 with a 30 percent strikeout rate with 30 homers, but, like, actually being a hitter that is feared in all situations — that’s a big deal,” Cardinals Manager Oliver Marmol told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch last month.

Marmol was right: Goldschmidt stands a good chance of being only the eighth player since 2012 to hit 30 or more home runs while batting .330 or higher.

The only blemish on Goldschmidt’s career season has been some recent criticism for declining to be vaccinated against Covid-19, which prevented him and third baseman Nolan Arenado from playing in a two-game series against Toronto last month. (The Cardinals split the games.) That issue would come up again if St. Louis were to face the Blue Jays in the World Series.

While neither team leads its division, Toronto and St. Louis have been on the move in recent weeks, and the Cardinals seem like a legitimate threat to prevent the Milwaukee Brewers from repeating as N.L. Central champions.

Goldschmidt, Arenado and second baseman Tommy Edman rank second, third and seventh in WAR among position players; no other team has three players in the top 10. Combined, they account for 15 WAR.

The Cardinals also have a better run differential than the Brewers, a vital statistic that St. Louis ranks fourth in among National League teams. And that figure could improve after St. Louis bolstered its rotation with trades at the deadline for José Quintana and Jordan Montgomery, a pair of quality left-handed starters.

Even if they fail to win the division, the Cardinals would be in line for one of the N.L.’s three wild-card spots in the expanded playoff field.

And should Goldschmidt get back to the postseason, there is reason to believe his outlandish season would continue: In 21 playoff games, he has eight home runs.

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Knicks vs. Bulls prediction: NBA picks, odds

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3 months ago

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December 23, 2022

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The NBA’s longest win streak is finally over after the Knicks suffered their first loss in nine games on Wednesday. Expect New York to start a new streak Friday against a team it dominated the last time they faced off.

The Knicks were playing like the best team in basketball during their lengthy win streak, posting the league’s best net rating (+17.3) with six double-digit victories in that eight-game run. That included a 23-point beat-down of the Bulls exactly a week ago, when New York drained 17 3s and saw three players score at least 22 points in an easy win.

Knicks vs. Bulls (7:30 p.m. Eastern) prediction: Knicks -5.5 (Caesars Sportsbook)

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That game marked the worst offensive showing of the season for Chicago (91 points), which has struggled with chemistry and spacing issues all year long. The Bulls rank dead last in 3-point attempts per game (28.8) and third-worst in offensive rebounding rate (23.6%), which leaves very few easy scoring chances for one of the NBA’s worst offenses.

Betting on the NBA?

It’s the opposite story for the Knicks, who boast three legitimate shot-creators and also rank among the league leaders in points in the paint. Julius Randle (31 points) relentlessly attacked this Chicago defense in their first meeting before allowing RJ Barrett (27 points) to lead the way in the second affair — his fourth of five straight games with at least 22 points. 

I don’t see this Knicks attack slowing down against one of the league’s most inconsistent defenses. And until Zach LaVine returns to his All-Star form, I’m skeptical of the Bulls’ offense showing up on Friday, too.

Knicks vs. Bulls pick: Knicks -5.5 (Caesars Sportsbook)

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Devils vs. Bruins prediction: Bet on New Jersey to end slide on NHL Friday

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3 months ago

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December 23, 2022

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After starting the season 21-4-1, it looked like the New Jersey Devils were going to run away with the Metropolitan Division as one of the very best teams in the NHL.

Not only were the Devils cruising, but their underlying metrics were elite. New Jersey was the best 5-on-5 team through the first quarter of the season.

Three weeks and one six-game losing streak later, and the Devils have fallen back to earth and are now two points behind the Carolina Hurricanes in the Metropolitan Division. 

The Devils were able to get off the schneid with a win over Florida on Wednesday, but the task doesn’t get any easier with the league-leading Boston Bruins in town.

New Jersey is a slight +102 home underdog against Boston starting at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN+ and the NHL Network.  

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Tomas Tatar #90 of the New Jersey Devils
Tomas Tatar #90 of the New Jersey Devils
NHLI via Getty Images

Bruins vs. Devils prediction

Even though the Devils have struggled to get results over their last 10 contests, their underlying numbers don’t suggest there’s all that much wrong with how they’re playing. New Jersey isn’t posting the pace-setting numbers it did through Thanksgiving, but it’s still skating to the fifth-best expected goals rate and high-danger scoring chance rate in the league over its last 10 contests.  

Those numbers should help ease any sense of panic that New Jersey could continue to fall back further into the pack as we head toward the New Year. 

So if New Jersey is still tilting the ice in the right direction, what is the issue for the Devils? 

For one thing, the Devs are struggling to find the back of the net like they did when they were rolling. New Jersey has scored just nine goals in its last five games, and four of those tallies came in a 4-2 victory over Florida on Wednesday. Over their last 10 games, the Devils rank 25th in the NHL with a 6.56% shooting percentage. 

Additionally, the Devils are not getting the goaltending needed to stabilize them. New Jersey’s netminders were always thought to be the team’s biggest weakness, and that has started to show lately as the Devils rank 23rd in the NHL in 5-on-5 save percentage over the last 10 games.

Hampus Lindholm #27 of the Boston Bruins
Hampus Lindholm #27 of the Boston Bruins
NHLI via Getty Images

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The Bruins, meanwhile, continue to roll. Boston is 7-1-2 over its last 10 contests and ranks third in the league over that span in expected goals rate and fourth in high-danger chance percentage. The Bruins pace the NHL with a +54 goal differential, which is 25 goals better than the team in second (Toronto). 

But as impressive as Boston has been over its first 31 games of the season, the Bruins are playing on a back-to-back on Friday, while the Devils were off on Thursday night. 

The Bruins are the better team in a vacuum, but this is a good buy-low spot on the Devils, who are still playing solid hockey but are just not getting the results.

Devils vs. Bruins pick

New Jersey Devils +102 (FanDuel)

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At the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, a Female Crew of Two

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3 months ago

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December 23, 2022

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Kathy Veel has come a long way since 1989, when she first sailed in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race with an all-female crew on the Belles Long Ranger.

“It started off with four of us women — we figured, let’s give it a shot,” said Veel, 70, a retired teacher who lives in Bullaburra, about 60 miles west of Sydney, Australia. “We didn’t have a boat. We didn’t have any money. It was a real start from scratch. No one took us seriously.”

Not anymore. Veel is now back for her third Sydney Hobart, which starts on Monday, this time also breaking ground. She will be part of the only all-female crew competing in the race’s two-handed division on the Currawong, at 30 feet long the second smallest boat in the fleet. She will be sailing with Bridget Canham, 62, of Sydney, a veteran of several Sydney Hobart races.

Veel said that in 1989, there were doubts the crew of women could handle the grueling conditions of the race.

“We were kind of a token gesture,” she said. “There were a lot of people who didn’t think we were up to it. They would ask, what we were going to do when it’s blowing 30 knots and the boat is swamped? We’ll be doing pretty much what they’ll be doing — putting up sails and racing the boat.”

Their goal was to simply finish the race, which they did. “It opened the door for us,” Veel said.

“Women in sailing have come so far,” she said. “Most boats these days have got women on them. And that’s great.”

Canham, a retired nurse who volunteers as an emergency boat pilot, said sailing had indeed changed.

“Sailing is more of an integrated sport now,” she said. “Now, it’s just by coincidence that we are just two women on a boat. We’re just sailors. We don’t think of ourselves as anything different.”

The two-handed division, where a boat is raced by two sailors — as opposed to a large crew ranging from 6 to 25 — is now in its second year at the Sydney Hobart. For Veel and Canham, the draw of two-handed racing is access.

“Having a fully crewed racing yacht was way outside of my resources,” Veel said. “I’m retired. But now that they have the two-handed, we can do the race. It gives people the opportunity to sail in the race who aren’t on a fully crewed yacht.” Yearly maintenance on two-handed boats might be $10,000, while much larger yachts require millions of dollars to maintain.

Canham also said the sailors in the two-handed division were a tightknit group. “The two-handed community is just so supportive; it’s like we are all on the same team,” she said.

Veel and Canham generally split duties on the boat, taking turns on the sails and at the wheel, with Canham focusing on sails and Veel on navigation and race tactics.

“Bridget knows the wind and is good at getting the best out of the boat,” Veel said. “She’ll have every sail tweaked and tuned. She never takes her eye off the ball. She’s also extremely gutsy and strong-minded and determined.”

Veel and Canham have prepared for the event by sailing in four other races this year. Over that time, they realized the boat, a Currawong 30, built in 1974 with beaten 20-year-old sails, needed upgrades, but they’ve accepted its limits.

“We’ve been able to test out our boat in these previous races, but it really has felt that 90 percent of this race has been just getting to the start line,” Veel said. “We’ve just been focused on getting the boat ready. Now that we are there, and there are no more obstacles between us and the race, that’s when I’m starting to wonder what have I got myself into. Now it’s real.”

Canham heads into the race committed, but knows their limitations.

“No one is expecting us to do anything,” she said. “But I don’t think they realize just how determined we are.”

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