It should be noted that of those guys, only Branyan really failed because of strikeout woes. The other 3 were really just playing way over their head their first season, and had some serious drops in either power or BABIP. And Branyan's K% rate was through the roof, higher than what Goldschmidt did this year.

It's interesting to go and click on their minor league careers and look at the numbers in the year or years just before being called up to majors. Somewhat similar to Goldy's year. (Except Branyan, who couldn't hit for average in the minors)

Craig Wilson actually had a decent career and was quite useful for 4 seasons AFTER his rookie year. He put up a 116 OPS+ over the next 4 seasons. So while not quite up to Rookie levels, he was OK. (Big platoon split for him...he absolutely killed lefties). His K% in his rookie year was 29%. Then over his next 3 years he averaged 26% K rate. But in his 4th year it went back up to 29% and then over 30% in subsequent years and he was out of baseball shortly after.

Blanks saw his K rate soar from 32% his rookie year to 38% his second. This past year he was at 27%.

Sam Horn, a legend to Red Sox fanboys everywhere, had a couple of pretty good seasons after his rookie year. (90-91 combined 128 OPS+). But his K rate dropped from 31% his rookie year to 25% the next 4 seasons, which is why he managed to have some success..But when it went back up over 30% and he was out of baseball shortly thereafter.

Branyan of course never did get his K Rate under 30%, and for those of us that always wondered what Branyan would look like if he were just given a full time job, we got our answer when Mark Reynolds came along.

And of course Reynolds started off his first couple years with very high BABIP's, but then his BABIP dropped off the table along with his line drive rate.

In summary, the moral of this story is 30% K rates are bad, and it's almost impossible to sustain a successful major league career with K rates that high. Goldschmidt needs to lower his K rate to have a chance at SUSTAINED major league success. 29-30% isn't gonna cut it. We can sit here and speculate whether or not he will lower the K rate. The fact that he lowered it in AA this year does gives hope that with further time in MLB he will adjust. But until he does it, he hasn't done it. And what we do know for certain is that 30% is not workable long term.

Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.

Hey, gotta help out those with the attention span of a nat too.

The Nats play in DC. Gnats are annoying little flies that have no apparent attention span. Cough.

Gnats are from San Francisco.

Now that the emotion of the moments are over, it's back to analysis mode. Unfortunately the strikeouts are still an issue. He has to dramtically reduce his strikeouts or this comp list isn't gong to change much:


For single seasons, From 1901 to 2011, From Age 22 to 24, (requiring onbase_plus_slugging_plus>=110, PA<=225, SO>.28*PA and At least 150 plate appearances), sorted by greatest Adjusted OPS+




Report Link

Paul Goldschmidt is a fun player. Who knows how long the fun will last, given his skill-set, but hey, I like home runs and walks. He could probably hit 30 for the Diamondbacks if he got all of the plate appearances. However, the Diamondbacks brought Lyle Overbay home, and given that he hits from the other side of the plate from Goldschmidt and cannot play anywhere but first, they seem like they want to give him playing time. Better him than Geoff “I’m still in the league?” Blum, I suppose.

It's interesting to go and click on their minor league careers and look at the numbers in the year or years just before being called up to majors. Somewhat similar to Goldy's year. (Except Branyan, who couldn't hit for average in the minors)

Craig Wilson actually had a decent career and was quite useful for 4 seasons AFTER his rookie year. He put up a 116 OPS+ over the next 4 seasons. So while not quite up to Rookie levels, he was OK. (Big platoon split for him...he absolutely killed lefties). His K% in his rookie year was 29%. Then over his next 3 years he averaged 26% K rate. But in his 4th year it went back up to 29% and then over 30% in subsequent years and he was out of baseball shortly after.

Blanks saw his K rate soar from 32% his rookie year to 38% his second. This past year he was at 27%.

Sam Horn, a legend to Red Sox fanboys everywhere, had a couple of pretty good seasons after his rookie year. (90-91 combined 128 OPS+). But his K rate dropped from 31% his rookie year to 25% the next 4 seasons, which is why he managed to have some success..But when it went back up over 30% and he was out of baseball shortly thereafter.

Branyan of course never did get his K Rate under 30%, and for those of us that always wondered what Branyan would look like if he were just given a full time job, we got our answer when Mark Reynolds came along.

And of course Reynolds started off his first couple years with very high BABIP's, but then his BABIP dropped off the table along with his line drive rate.

In summary, the moral of this story is 30% K rates are bad, and it's almost impossible to sustain a successful major league career with K rates that high. Goldschmidt needs to lower his K rate to have a chance at SUSTAINED major league success. 29-30% isn't gonna cut it. We can sit here and speculate whether or not he will lower the K rate. The fact that he lowered it in AA this year does gives hope that with further time in MLB he will adjust. But until he does it, he hasn't done it. And what we do know for certain is that 30% is not workable long term.

Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.