The Arizona Diamondbacks are trending upwards this season, thanks in large part to their most consistent performer over the last six seasons, Paul Goldschmidt.
Paul Goldschmidt is likely the only player that causal baseball fans can name off the roster of the Arizona Diamondbacks outside of Zack Greinke. Goldy leads the D-Backs in fWAR this season at 2.3, which ranks fifth among all qualified hitters and ranks second among first baseman behind the recently injured Freddie Freeman. Baseball Reference has him at a 2.4 WAR, which, added to his previous accomplishments has slid him into 74th all time among first basemen, one-tenth behind Andres Galarraga, and tied with Wally Pipp. Keep in mind that Goldschmidt debuted in 2011 and at 29, he’s still in just his sixth big league season.
And that’s where things get interesting for America’s first baseman.
Awhile back, Jay Jaffe developed a system for rating potential Hall of Fame candidates known as JAWS, short for Jaffe Wins Above Replacement Score. Sure the acronym doesn’t quite work but JWARS, while very catchy, adds to the confusion surrounding WAR in general and was developed at the same time that the Jersey Shore infiltrated popular culture. Having an acronym so close to “JWOW” was likely not a good move either. Anyway, Jaffe describes his system like this:
"JAWS is a tool for measuring a candidate’s Hall of Fame worthiness by comparing him to the players who are already enshrined. It uses the baseball-reference.com version of Wins Above Replacement to estimate a player’s total hitting, pitching and defensive value while accounting for the wide variations in scoring levels that have occurred throughout the game’s history and from ballpark to ballpark. – Jay Jaffe, Sports Illustrated"
One key metric of this system is measuring a player’s seven-year peak, or best seven year span, so as not to reward a player with enshrinement into Cooperstown based solely on the longevity of their career WAR total. The way he does this is by taking a player’s best WAR numbers (from Baseball Reference) over a seven-year period, which is slightly different from WAR7 where the years do not have to be sequential, then adding their career numbers and finding an average of the two.
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Paul Goldschimdt’s JAWS score currently sits at 31.4, including his stats from this season. The average for a Hall of Famer is 54.6, which nine Hall of Fame first basemen have exceeded and nine have fallen below. Thirteen players have exceeded that threshold however, including current players like Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, while Jim Thome is will awaiting his first chance on the ballot until 2018. A finger-wagging Rafael Palmeiro is also on the list, but fell off the ballot in 2014 due to PED ties.
So how does Goldschmidt even have a chance to get to the Hall of Fame with such a sizable gap? Well the average bWAR (overall WAR) for a Hall of Famer is 66.4, which would take about the same amount of production from Goldy in the next seven or so years of his career to reach. But if we’re taking JAWS as a barometer here, he’ll need a solid conclusion to 2017 and another great performance next season in order to increase in chances.
If we subtract his bWAR numbers from this season (2.4), that would put him with a WAR of 29 for his career entering this season. In order to boost his average bWAR numbers for his best seven-year span, he’ll have to continue doing what he’s doing in order to make that average figure higher. From there, he’ll have to remain equal parts healthy and productive.
It’s possible (heck, probable) that Paul Goldschmidt can outperform his 3.4 bWAR from 2012 and elongate that seven-year stretch from 2013-2019, instead of including that figure and using 2012-2018 as his peak years, thereby helping his chances even more.
It’s worth noting that he has already outproduced two Hall of Fame inductees at first base in Charlie Comiskey (1882-1894) and High Pockets Kelly (1915-1932). The only players that are either still active or have not been on the ballot yet are Pujols, Thome, Cabrera, Todd Helton, David Ortiz, Mark Teixeira, Jason Giambi, Joey Votto, Adrian Gonzalez and Kevin Youkilis.
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Of course, winning a World Series for the Arizona Diamondbacks could also help his case to some degree, but in today’s era where sabermetrics are becoming king, the next couple of seasons could weight heavily on Goldschmidt’s potential immortality.