Since Mark Teixeira retired at the end of the 2016 season, the New York Yankees have tried — and failed — to find a long term first baseman. Despite a promising cup of coffee in 2015, Greg Bird was beset
by injuries and was out of the picture completely after 2019. Luke Voit took the league by storm at the end of 2018, started strong in 2019, and led all of baseball in home runs in 2020, but struggled in the second half of 2019 and in 2021, before ultimately succumbing to injuries. Anthony Rizzo came over at the 2021 deadline, had a career resurgence through the 2022 season, then suffered a concussion and was never the same again. Scattered among these four players’ stints as the primary first baseman, a whopping 36 players have grabbed a first baseman’s mitt for the Yankees, with less-than-stellar success.
Due to this instability, the Yankees opted to sign Paul Goldschmidt to a one-year, $12.5 million contract last winter to serve as the team’s Opening Day first baseman. While no longer his NL MVP self — he had just a 100 wRC+ last season — Goldschmidt represented a marked improvement over the Yankees’ 2024 options with both the glove and the bat, by virtue of the fact that he demonstrated basic competence with both. Fortunately for the Yankees — although unfortunately for Goldschmidt’s playing time — sheer competence would not be enough for him to keep the first base job all season, thanks to the breakout of Ben Rice.
Grade: B-
2025 Statistics: 145 games, .274/.328/.403, 10 HR, 45 RBI, 103 wRC+, -1 DRS, -3 OAA, 1.2 rWAR, 0.8 fWAR
2026 Contract Status: Impending Free Agent
During his prime, Paul Goldschmidt was one of the National League’s most complete players, posting a .298/.395/.532 slash line (147 OPS+) and averaging 28.7 home runs and 33.0 doubles, and 12.5 stolen bases per 162 games from 2013 to 2022, earning four Gold Gloves and four Silver Sluggers in that time. Alas, Father Time comes for us all, and Goldschmidt has been no exception: his power numbers have steadily declined since his 2022 MVP campaign, and his 10 home runs represent the fewest he hit in a non-shortened season since his rookie year.
For some players, a decline in power would be the end of the road. Goldschmidt, however, reinvented himself in the vein of Luis Arráez, sacrificing some of his home run power and hard hit rate to become the archetypal leadoff hitter in front of Aaron Judge. Across the season’s first two months, he had a .338/.394/.495 slash line with six home runs and 13 doubles, and his strikeout rate hovered around the 16-18 percent mark throughout this stretch — a marked improvement over his 26.7 percentage in 2024.
The month of June, however, served as a turning point for first baseman’s season. On the 16th day of the month, Giancarlo Stanton returned from the injured list, adding to a lineup bottleneck that already saw the team trying to balance playing time for Goldschmidt, Rice, Trent Grisham, Jasson Domínguez, Cody Bellinger, and Austin Wells while also trying to get Aaron Judge some DH days. Unfortunately for Goldschmidt, this crunch happened in the midst of his worst slump of the season — throughout the month of June, he posted a .143/.226/.238 slash line and had just four extra base hits. While Goldschmidt’s role did not immediately drop off, this slump, combined with Rice’s strong second half, led to a gradual decrease in playing time. By the end of the season, he was starting only about half the time (in September, he got only 13 starts at first, almost exclusively when Rice was behind the plate).
Despite his decrease in playing time, Goldschmidt carved out a number of roles for himself down the stretch. Thanks to his 169 wRC+ against southpaws (seventh in the league among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances), he lengthened the top of the order against lefties and gave the team a bat off the bench late in games. When Rice started at first, he served as a defensive replacement late in games. And, most significantly, he provided veteran leadership in the clubhouse, mentoring Rice as he continued to hone his craft at a position he only began to play in the middle of last season.
In the grand scheme of things, Goldschmidt’s Yankees career is going to go down as nothing more than a footnote in a long and successful career, as it seems unlikely that the team will look to bring him back for the 2026 season. Goldy was a stopgap, meant to give Rice time in the hopes that he would develop into a major league first baseman. It’s a role that many veterans are asked to fill late in their careers. And Goldy? He did that as well as you can ask for.
