Please check out the Projections Primer, to see how I come about getting these projections.
Prior to getting started, I want to take a look at the last three years of Paul Goldschmidt's career and his total career numbers, showing the statistics that I utilize in my projections.
The 2020 season is our most recent sample size and professional sports are often reduced to a "what have you done for me lately" business. Here is his 2020 season (majors only) separated from the rest 1) to highlight it and 2) to more easily come back to it for comparison purposes.
2020
231 PA - .302/.416/.464/.879
13 doubles, 0 triples, 6 homers
31 runs, 21 RBI, 1 SB, 0 CS
This year, I plan to incorporate a couple of (I hope) interesting items to go along with the mean (average) projection. I am going to be adding in "THE GOOD" (an everything goes right)" projection and "THE BAD” (an everything went wrong)" projection prior to giving THE CERUTTI (my actual projection). THE GOOD is basically if a player is 10% better in a few of the listed categories while THE BAD is basically if a player is 10% worse in a few of the listed categories - based on THE CERUTTI projection, which is my 50th percentile-type projection that gets made every year by other projection services like STEAMER or ZiPS.
THE GOOD
(Best case)
715 PA - .306/.408/.543/.951
36 doubles, 2 triples, 34 homers
110 runs, 101 RBI, 6 SB, 2 CS
This is what we had last year in Paul Goldschmidt, except also hitting bombs, bombs, and more bombs in addition to everything else he did. This is who we hoped we had traded for. We have yet to see that and that's okay. It'd be nice to see it once out of him in STL, but entering his age 33 year is not the time I would have thought to have seen it in this contract.
THE BAD
(worst case)
591 PA - .250/.341/.444/.785
25 doubles, 2 triples, 24 homers
75 runs, 68 RBI, 4 SB, 2 CS
So um, please no. That's all I've got.
THE CERUTTI
(my system projection)
650 PA - .278/.375/.493/.869
30 doubles, 2 triples, 29 homers
91 runs, 83 RBI, 5 SB, 2 CS
Paul Goldschmidt is a stellar first baseman. My guess is that THE CERUTTI is going to be pretty close, but we'll probably see that SLG down a good 15-25 points so his line is close to a .280/.375/.470/.845 type of line. That would be a few less double and a few less homers on the year.
I hope that this is the year he has Busch III finally figured out and Arenado hitting behind him unlocks his power in St. Louis.
Link back to all of my projections.