Signs point to potential Paul Goldschmidt rebound with Yankees after rough 2024

Few people in baseball have been around Paul Goldschmidt longer than Turner Ward, who managed the first baseman in the minors and was his hitting coach at two different spots in the majors. That includes the previous three seasons in St.Louis, starting with Goldschmidt’s MVP 2022 season and ending with the first baseman’s subpar ’24. Now, Goldschmidt is looking to help the Yankees make up for losing Juan Soto.

Ward, who wasn’t retained by the Cardinals after the season, believes Goldschmidt will return to being the feared hitter he’s been for most of his career, despite being 37. “Over the last six weeks of the season, he got back to simplifying things,” Ward said by phone.“Hitting off a tee and things like that.

Over the course of last season, his swing got out of sequence and he tried to do too much.Personally, I have no doubt he can get back to being the hitter he’s been.” This past year ended up as Goldschmidt’s worst season, with a jump in strikeouts and a drop in walks, among other dips in his typical production. Ward pointed to Goldschmidt’s desire to constantly learn more about his swing and technique as part of the issue.

He went to his bat company to see if changes could be made there and previously spent time at Driveline in hopes of increasing his bat speed. “That’s not for everybody,” Ward said.“We talked about it last year, he did some things I know had a negative effect on him.

He sped up his upper half and that’s where the disconnect happened.” The improvements really occurred over the last two months of the season, as Goldschmidt had a .658 OPS through his first 98 games and an OPS of .826 over his final 56 games. He was even better in the last month of the season, with a .920 OPS in 30 games. “I witnessed it and watched him,” Ward said.“I saw the frustration he felt and then he got back to being as simple as he possibly could and got results.” The Yankees don’t necessarily need the 2022 N...