Goldy wins MVP he should have won in AZ
Former D-Backs slugger deserved award in 2017
Paul Goldschmidt winning the National League MVP is a reminder that good things come to those who wait, and better things come to those who work for it.
Goldy should have won an MVP here in Arizona, of course. He got robbed 2017 when MVP voters went for Cincinnati’s Joey Votto. Votto couldn’t possibly have been MVP because his team was in last place.
And, yeah, I know Goldy was runnerup a couple of times before, but I wasn’t covering the team then. All I know is that Votto got votes that should have gone to Goldschmidt. We can assume the Reds certainly would have been in last place without Votto, so how valuable, then, could he have possibly been?
I’ll admit, it was pretty cool that Andre Dawson won an MVP with the last place Cubs in 1987, but that’s just because I was 9 and a big-time Cubs fan. Yes, I’m from Detroit, but the Cubs were everybody’s favorite team in the suburb of South Bend, Indiana, where I lived with my family. Mostly because they were on TV. And the generation of fans that taught me baseball loved telling the story of Ernie Banks winning for a losing Cubs in 1958 and ’59.
But the thing to remember here is the value of perseverance and steadiness.
Goldschmidt could be one of those guys who swings for the fences at every at-bat, but that’s not the best thing for the team when you have runners in scoring position and making solid contact will all but ensure a run.
And he could be one of those guys who completely ignores defense, but his four Gold Gloves have proved he would never take the easy way out.
Goldy could have settled down after leaving the Diamondbacks after the 2018 season in a trade with St. Louis.
He’s earned nearly $150 million since leaving Arizona.
He could have started chasing stats to ensure his next fat contract would be even fatter and wouldn’t be his last.
But he didn’t.
He maintained his approach. Disciplined.
Team oriented.
And it paid off, with the 35-year-old first baseman becoming one of the oldest MVPs ever. It’s something to remember.
Goldy could have been bitter after getting traded away.
He could have become complacent, allowing the disappointment of runner-up
finishes and a flat-out robbery to affect his mindest and approach to the game. But he didn’t. He kept plugging along. His MVP numbers (35 home runs, 115 runs batted in and a .317 batting average) weren’t dramatically different from his numbers in 2013 when he finished second in MVP voting (36 home runs, 125 runs batted in, .302 batting average) or 2015, when he finished second and hit 33 home runs, 110 RBIs with a .321 average, or 2017, when he led the Diamondbacks to the playoffs, hitting 36 homers, 120 RBIs and a .297 average.
But it shows that if you keep plugging away, doing the things you’ve always done to be successful, there will be a reward. And not just an internal reward, the inner satisfaction of a job well-done, regardless of whether anyone is watching. But others will see it, too.
And recognize it.
It’s too bad that it didn’t happen here. But it’s a good thing that it happened, at all. Goldy winning MVP (finally) shows that good things come to those who wait, and better things come to those who work for it.