Paul Goldschmidt Making Strong Claim for MLB's Top-Hitter Throne

Who's the best hitter in Major League Baseball? Most people would probably say Miguel Cabrera. And that's a fine choice, what with him being Miguel Cabrera and all.

But for your consideration, here's another name: Paul Goldschmidt.

Now, it crossed my mind to proceed by introducing the Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman as baseball's most underrated player. But according to the latest update, Goldschmidt is trailing only Bryce Harper and Buster Posey in the National League All-Star voting. 

Evidently, the secret is out. Fans have noticed that Goldschmidt is following two excellent seasons in 2013 and 2014 with another one in 2015, as he's batting .354/.473/.654 with a 1.127 OPS, 20 home runs, 13 stolen bases and, per FanGraphs, a 4.3 WAR that checks in at No. 3 among all players.

Those are some darn good numbers. And beyond lots and lots of All-Star votes, they're leading to some eyebrow-raising testimonials, such as this one from D-Backs general manager Dave Stewart, via Arizona Sports 98.7:

Does that statement have merit? Absolutely. Goldschmidt was already really, really good before. And this year, he's become really, really great.

But since Mike Trout still exists...yeah, calling Goldschmidt baseball's best player doesn't work so well. Until Trout goes away, Goldschmidt can't have that particular throne.

We can talk about the title of game's best hitter, though. That's a different throne, and Goldschmidt does have a strong claim to that.

One way we can tell is by turning to a stat called weighted runs created plus (wRC+), which measures a player's hitting value in relation to league average (100). Per FanGraphs, Goldschmidt entered Friday with a wRC+ of 188 over the last calendar year.

David Zalubowski/Associated Press

The list of players who rank ahead of him? Totally empty. Goldschmidt is No. 1.

And indeed, this has a lot to do with how much the 27-year-old slugger has upped his game in 2015. His .354 batting average ties him with Jason Kipnis for first in MLB. His .473 OBP has first place all to itself. And though he can't touch Harper's .719 slugging percentage, Goldschmidt's .655 mark is No. 2.

So, here's the gist of Goldschmidt's claim to the title of baseball's best hitter: He's been better than anyone over the last 365 days. And this year alone he's been baseball's toughest out while also hitting for power at an elite rate.

And this is just the very, very basic argument in favor of Goldschmidt's case. As we go deeper, we discover that he might be MLB's most complete hitter.

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

As we established, he has gone from being a hitter who was already really good (he slashed .302/.399/.548 in 2013 and 2014) to being a hitter who's now arguably the best in the game. 

That means one of two things: Either he's gotten lucky, or he's legitimately gotten better.

In Goldschmidt's case, there's plenty that says the latter is true, starting with his approach.

Goldschmidt's walk rate (18.6 BB%) and strikeout rate (17.9 K%) are both career bests. And with more walks than strikeouts to his name, he's put himself in very special company. Only five other hitters in the league have better than a 1-1 balance between walks and strikeouts.

This suggests Goldschmidt is putting together better at-bats. Not surprisingly, that notion is supported by the data.

According to FanGraphs, Goldschmidt entered Friday chasing pitches outside the strike zone a career-low 22.7 percent of the time. He also had a career-low 8.3 swinging-strike percentage and is easily below the league average of 9.7 percent. 

This, certainly, is how you avoid strikeouts and take your walks. But there's also more to putting together good at-bats than simply avoiding whiffs and not chasing balls. Those habits mean nothing if a batter isn't also hitting the ball hard when he puts it in play.

And, yes, Goldschmidt is doing that, too.

In a chat with Bob Baum of the Associated Press (via the Washington Times), here's how Goldschmidt outlined his approach to hitting: "I just try to hit. If I go up there trying to hit a homer or double, it’s usually a strikeout or a ground ball. I just try to hit a hard line drive and hopefully they don’t catch it, and if you get under it and it goes out, all the better."

If we were to break this down to three basic priorities, they would be:

1. Put the ball in play.
2. Keep it off the ground.
3. Hit it hard.

We know from Goldschmidt's diminished strikeout rate that he's doing the first one, so that takes care of that. But we also know he's doing the other two—and about as well as he possibly could, to boot.

Entering Thursday, Goldschmidt's ground-ball percentage was nearly a career low, at 40.8 percent. That means more of the balls off his bat are the line drives and fly balls he seeks. Because we know line drives are good for batting average and power, and fly balls are good for home runs, this is optimal.

And of course, line drives and fly balls become even more dangerous the harder they're hit. To this end, Baseball Savant just so happens to keep an exit-velocity leaderboard for line drives and fly balls. On Thursday, it looked like this:

Rank	Player	Team	ABs With Data	Avg - FB/LD MPH
1	Giancarlo Stanton	MIA	125	101.9
2	Pedro Alvarez	PIT	113	98.1
3	Paul Goldschmidt	ARI	135	97.9
T3	Joc Pederson	LAD	119	97.9
5	Miguel Cabrera	DET	157	97.6

Goldschmidt hasn't been hitting his line drives and fly balls the hardest this season, but he's ahead of Cabrera and just a few ticks shy of Giancarlo Stanton—you know, the same guy who has a real shot at hitting 60 homers this year.

So, Goldschmidt hasn't just fine-tuned his approach to the point that he's now balancing walks and strikeouts with the best of 'em. He's also getting the ball in the air better than ever and squaring it up when he does.

But these aren't the only ways Goldschmidt has become a more dangerous hitter. In addition to featuring more well-hit balls, he's also featured less predictable batted balls.

Goldschmidt was mainly a pull hitter in the past, as 38.2 percent of the righty swinger's batted balls between 2011 and 2014 went to left field. He could be successful to center and right, too, but he preferred left field.

Not anymore. Entering Friday, Goldschmidt's pull rate was down to 20.4 percent. That was next to a rate of 41.8 percent to center field and 27.9 percent to right field.

That's a more even spread of batted balls. And darn it if it doesn't look good in spray-chart form. Courtesy of MLB Farm, we happen to have one of those:

Image courtesy of MLBFarm.com.

That's a pretty chart. And you can tell by looking that Goldschmidt has found success no matter which part of the field he's hit the ball to.

Or you could just consult the numbers.

Entering Friday, Goldschmidt ranked third in pull wRC+ and fifth in center wRC+. And though he ranked only 24th in opposite wRC+, that's still really good and is the one area where Goldschmidt has some untapped production.

Goldschmidt entered Friday with a hard-hit rate of 42.9 percent to the opposite field, good for sixth-best in MLB. If more of those hard hits start to fall, he could establish himself as one of the game's elite hitters in all directions.

So, behold the final recap. This year, Goldschmidt is balancing walks and strikeouts at an elite level, absolutely destroying the extra batted balls he's putting in the air and using the entire field to great success. Of all the things you could ask a great hitter to do, he's doing pretty much every one of them.

This doesn't mean the throne of baseball's best hitter should go to Goldschmidt with no questions asked. Cabrera is still awesome, after all, and so are Harper and Trout. Goldschmidt certainly isn't the only one with a strong case.

But as time goes on, it may only get harder to deny him the honor. His claim is arguably the strongest now and only getting stronger.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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