The New York Yankees took a risk in signing free agent Paul Goldschmidt over the winter. The 37-year first baseman had struggled at the plate in his last two seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals, although the year before that, in 2022, he had been the National League’s Most Valuable Player.

The Yankees had hopes that Goldschmidt, along with newly acquired Cody Bellinger, would replace the power production of Juan Soto, who left the Yankees for the Mets after last season.

But that hasn’t happened on Goldschmidt’s part.

In his first 26 games through Saturday, he’s hit only one home run and seven doubles among his 36 total hits. His slugging percentage is only .465, when his career average prior to this season was .510. This is also reflected in his declining exit velocity, hard-hit rate, and barrel-rate this season compared to 2024. However, his batting average (.364) ranks second in the league (behind Aaron Judge), while his on-base percentage (.413) ranks fifth.

We might recall that aging or injured pitchers have had to re-invent their approach after they had lost a lot of zip on their fastball. They had to use more finesse in their pitch selection to get batters out.

So, is Goldschmidt re-inventing himself as a batter?

Yankees manager Aaron Boone has used him as the leadoff batter in 10 of their 26 games. His hits have come in bunches. He had five games in which he got three hits and seven games with two hits. He has appeared in only seven games without a hit. He’s helping the Yankees win (first place in the AL East) in a different way than expected.

MLB.com’s Will Leitch observed, “He is becoming a singles hitter. It’s strange seeing Goldschmidt hit like Tony Gwynn.”

Aaron Judge and Goldschmidt rank 1st and 2nd in MLB in batting average. According to a recent MLB Network posting on X, it’s the first time in franchise history the Yankees have had two hitters lead the league in average at least 23 games into the season.

Despite Goldschmidt’s lack of home runs, the Yankees still lead the AL in home runs. Thus, there’s really no pressure at the moment on Goldschmidt to make any adjustments to his hitting approach.

What’s Goldschmidt’s take on his unusual start of the season? “I just try to hit the ball and just kind of let it do what it’s going to do,” Goldschmidt told the New York Post.