Paul Goldschmidt will play most of the 2019 season at age 31 before he'll be eligible for free agency in the fall, and he checks every box. He's been a phenomenal slugger, twice finishing runner-up for the MVP award. He's been an outstanding defender, with three Gold Gloves, and a diligent and adept baserunner. He has a reputation for being a great teammate, leading others by setting an example of preparation excellence.
Goldschmidt has been so good, and in so many different ways, that his contract situation with the St. Louis Cardinals will serve as an excellent litmus test, in the months ahead, in a market that has been viewed as depressed by the players and as properly adjusted by some folks on the team side.
On the podcast the other day, Red Sox president Dave Dombrowski discussed the more recent efforts of front offices to make sure they're paying for production to come, rather than for a player's past accomplishments. For most executives, the days of tacking an extra year or two on a deal to ensure you land a star player for the immediate future seem to be over.
The list of long-term deals that could end in an ugly way involves some future Hall of Famers. Albert Pujols has three years and $87 million remaining on his contract, and it's been seven years since the last time he posted an OPS of .800. Miguel Cabrera was once one of baseball's great ironmen, but he's missed 223 games in the past four seasons and now, in a year in which he turns 36, he has five years and $154 million left on the table with the Tigers. Jason Heyward has hit a total of 26 homers in three seasons with the Cubs, and Chicago owes him $106 million over the last five years of his eight-year deal.
Some long-term deals work out -- Max Scherzer has been spectacular so far for the Nationals, and Jon Lester has more than lived up to his end of the $155 million contract with the Cubs -- but a lot don't. The analysts working in front offices don't believe the clubs get the proper return on investment.
So many teams seem to be shying away from those really, really long-term deals, to the degree one agent predicted recently that after this winter -- after Bryce Harper and Manny Machado sign -- the days of the 10-plus-year deal might be over unless your name is Mike Trout or Mookie Betts. "Teams aren't willing to assume the risk anymore," he said.
Twenty years ago or 10, a player with Goldschmidt's résumé might've been a candidate for a decade-long contract. But it seems very unlikely this would happen now, in the current climate. Goldschmidt turns 32 next September, and only one position player 32 years or older signed a contract of three or more years this winter -- Andrew McCutchen, who got three years and $50 million.
In the past, a star player in Goldschmidt's position would've benefitted from testing free agency, and maybe that's the path Goldschmidt will take. But his best option may be to use the leverage he has right now: The Cardinals just traded for him, they've indicated they'd like to work to retain him, and they're one of the more moneyed teams in the sport.
And there is this elephant in the room: Nobody knows if the players' situation in free agency will continue to worsen, and if there is, in fact, a major labor war on the horizon. In meetings with players, union leader Tony Clark has encouraged players to save money to prepare for a possible battle ahead. There have not really been substantive negotiations between the players and owners to address the union's unhappiness with the current situation.
The confidence within the ranks of players and agents that labor peace and the attached prosperity are sustainable is shaky, which is why there are some players talking quietly about the need to make their best deal as soon as possible -- to make as much money as they can as soon as they can.
Goldschmidt will be in a position to make that kind of choice soon, and his decision will serve as an important barometer.
• Through their reaction to Tuesday's Hall of Fame news, Mariano Rivera and his family answered the question about whether voting percentage can matter to an inductee. Their explosion of emotion did not occur when Baseball Writers' Association official Jack O'Connell first called, nor when he informed them that the former Yankees closer had been voted into Cooperstown. It was only when O'Connell told them he was the first player to receive unanimous selection that the room erupted in joy.
Now a new voting standard has been established: the Mariano Rivera Standard. And a high bar has been set, not necessarily for the candidates, but for the voters.
For decades, some writers filled out ballots without including the most accomplished players, like Jackie Robinson, or Ted Williams, or Willie Mays, or Hank Aaron, or Frank Robinson, or Tom Seaver, or Greg Maddux, or Ken Griffey Jr.
Maybe the reason in some cases, especially in recent years, was ballot strategy, as the steroid era candidates have stacked up. Maybe it was because of an allegiance to a silly rogue standard that no player should ever receive election in his first year of eligibility. Maybe it was because of a personal sleight, although that has always been overrated as a factor. We can be safe in assuming racism played a role in the composition of some past ballots.
But now the Rivera Standard has been set in the Hall of Fame voting, and what was thought to be impossible by some can now be an expectation that some candidates should have a legitimate chance to achieve unanimity -- and that they deserve this.
For some candidates, that won't be the case. The debate over Omar Vizquel's offense will continue, as the 11-time Gold Glove winner moves into his third year on the ballot; it's evident he'll never achieve anything close to unanimity. The percentages for Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds nudged upward slightly, but with a rock-solid voting bloc working against them, any application of previous voting trends probably won't apply; they have only three years left on the ballot, and of course, there will never be complete agreement about their induction.
But Derek Jeter reaches the ballot next year, with his extraordinary résumé.
He accumulated 3,465 hits; only five players in baseball history had more.
He scored 1,923 runs, 11th best all-time.
He compiled 12,602 plate appearances, 10th most.
And moments? Yeah, he had a few of those, from the Flip Play to his Mr. November home run to his Yankee Stadium walk-off in his final plate appearance in the building where he will forever be royalty.
Jeter should be a unanimous selection. Adrian Beltre is overwhelmingly qualified for Hall of Fame election; he should be named on every ballot in his first year of eligibility. After Clayton Kershaw retires, he should be a unanimous selection, and the same will be true for Mike Trout.
Some fans have complained about what they perceive as the gradual erosion of qualifications for the Hall, and they think Cooperstown honors should be reserved for only the best of the best, for players like Babe Ruth, Mays, Aaron, Cobb, Walter Johnson. Some fans feel the induction of certain players -- whose long and accomplished professional careers will not be denigrated here, by naming them -- has somehow diminished the plaques.
Now that the writers and Mariano Rivera have demonstrated that 100 percent is possible, the voting percentage these players receive can serve as a new standard, a new definition of the difference between the players who are Hall of Famers, and those who are part of an inner circle.
Stan Musial should've been a unanimous pick, and the same is true for Sandy Koufax, Rickey Henderson and others; their results can't be altered. But moving forward, there is a new precedent, which writers will be obligated to consider.
Over the past dozen years, writers have struggled to navigate around the Hall of Fame's ballot limit, the Rule of 10, and some writers didn't vote for the best candidates under the presumption that players like Griffey Jr. would be elected anyway.
But now slam-dunk candidates like Beltre and Jeter may have special consideration, with writers honoring the strength of their respective cases by making sure they are included on their ballots.
This is right. Because Rivera earned that; he earned the exhilaration of the details of O'Connell's phone call because of how he dominated hitters with his cutter, how consistent he was over his 19-year career, and how he performed time and again in the postseason, through a record 96 appearances -- just two homers among 527 batters faced. That Rivera comported himself with a dignity deeply respected by his peers was window dressing to his candidacy, but likely part of the reason every voter included him on their ballots. For a lot of writers who covered him and got to know him, there was probably happiness in seeing Rivera experience that achievement of unanimity.
Now, moving forward, we will all have a greater understanding of how a vote on a loose whim or small-mindedness can rob someone of deserved affirmation. All of the writers got it right in voting for Rivera, and hopefully, this election will compel them to provide to other great players what Mays, Aaron, Maddux and others did not get.