Tyler Locklear will start the season on the injured list as he recovers from elbow and shoulder surgeries and leaves the club Diamond ridges thin on the first base depth map. The left-handed hitter Pavin Smith will get at least some regular at-bats, but given Smith’s struggles against lefties, a right-handed bat would be a useful platoon partner or a candidate for DH time. With this in mind, John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7FM radio believes the D’Backs will “kick the tires at a reunion with Paul Goudschmidt‘This winter.
Goldschmidt spent the first eight seasons of his stellar career with the Snakes, where he made six All-Star appearances while hitting .297/.398/.532 with 209 home runs over 4,708 plate appearances. Goldschmidt was traded to the Cardinals before the 2019 season and maintained much of that form during his six-year stint in St. Louis, but he was just about a league average (102 wRC+) and 1188 PA over the past two seasons with the Cardinals and Yankees. Goldschmidt played with New York last year and got off to a good start, but faded along the way, forcing the Yankees to concede Ben Rice an increasing amount of playing time at first base.
Now entering his age-38 season, Goldschmidt may no longer be an ideal everyday option, but he had a .336/.411/.570 slash line in 168 PA against lefties in 2025. These splits have him being looked at by multiple teams in free agency, and returning to his original team in a timeshare with Smith seems like a pretty good fit for all parties.
More from around the National League…
- Joe McEwing and the Cardinals “mutually agreed to part ways,” said Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. McEwing spent the first two years of his playing career in St. Louis in 1998-99, returning to the organization as manager Oliver Marmol’s bench coach prior to the 2023 season after more than a decade on the White Sox coaching staff. The bench coaching job lasted just one year, as McEwing spent the past two seasons as a special assistant to president of baseball operations John Mozeliak. With Chaim Bloom now taking over the PBO role, Bloom may look to make even more organizational changes, or McEwing may explore other coaching or front office roles.
- The Giants It appears that Tony Vitello is approaching a unique managerial choice, as it would be the first time a major league team has hired a college coach who had no prior experience in any aspect of professional baseball. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic looks at some of the details involved in the San Francisco chase, and suggests that Max Scherzer could be a free agent target if Vitello is indeed hired. When Vitello was an assistant coach at the University of Missouri, he recruited Scherzer to pitch at the school, and the two have remained close friends over the past two decades. The Giants are known to be looking for pitching, and Scherzer could potentially replace Justin Verlander as the experienced voice of the rotation. As Baggarly puts it, “who better than Scherzer to ensure Vitello gets the full buy-in of even the most skeptical veteran player in the room?” The 41-year-old Scherzer posted just a 5.19 ERA over 85 innings in an injury-shortened regular season for the Blue Jays, but he delivered a strong start and earned the victory for Toronto in Game 4 of the ALCS.
#Notes #DBacks #Goldschmidt #Giants #Scherzer #McEwing