Paul Goldschmidt, St. Louis Cardinals
Fresh off signing a long-term extension to stay in St. Louis, Paul Goldschmidt sure seems comfortable with his new squad. Through his first 24 plate appearances, the veteran first baseman slashed .300/.417/.900 (!!) with four home runs and eight RBI.
That’s impressive by itself, but the route he’s taken to get there makes you shake your head in disbelief once more. Goldy has paired those numbers with a 27.3% line-drive rate and 54.5% fly-ball rate, along with a 0.0% soft-hit rate and a league-leading (heading into Wednesday’s games) 90.9% hard-hit rate.
This hot start from Goldschmidt isn’t necessarily surprising — he’s been one of the game’s quietest superstars for years. However, it’s fun to see how different the start of 2019 has been for him compared to 2018. He didn’t hit his fourth homer of the year until his 44th game last season, and his hard-hit rate through the end of April was 39.7%.
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