St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt was voted the winner of the 2022 Players Choice National League Outstanding Player Award over Los Angeles Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman and Austin Riley of the Atlanta Braves.
Goldschmidt batted .317/.404/.578 with 41 doubles, 35 home runs and 115 RBI in his fourth season with the Cardinals. He led the NL in slugging percentage, .981 on-base plus slugging and 180 OPS+.
Goldschmidt also was a finalist for Player of the Year, which went to New York Yankees free agent Aaron Judge.
Since the the Players Choice Awards began in 1992, 19 of 30 winners for NL Outstanding Player additionally went on to be voted MVP by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Prior to Goldschmidt, Albert Pujols was the last Cardinals player to win either award when he was voted the recipient of Outstanding Player and MVP in both 2008 and 2009.
Bryce Harper won the two awards last season, just as Freeman did in 2020. In 2019, Anthony Rendon received the NL Outstanding Player Award but Cody Bellinger was voted MVP.
Freeman looked plenty comfortable in his first season with the Dodgers, batting.325/.407/.511 with 47 doubles, 21 home runs and 100 RBI.
Freeman led the Majors with 199 hits and in doubles, while his on-base percentage and runs scored (117) were tops in the NL. He additionally ranked second in the league in batting average, on-base plus slugging (.918), wOBA (.393) and wRC+ (157).
Although Freeman fell short for the MLB Players Association honor, he is among the finalists for a Silver Slugger and the Hank Aaron Award. It’s also expected that Freeman will be an NL MVP finalist.
Freddie Freeman achieved regular season goals
Prior to the Dodgers suffering a disappointing postseason exit, Freeman revealed he reached personal benchmarks during the regular season.
“My goal usually every year — I don’t say it out loud — but it’s hit .300, 100 runs scored, 100 RBI and a .900 OPS,” he said prior to the NL Division Series beginning.
“To be able to check off all those in my first season with the Dodgers, and to set a franchise record in wins, I don’t think you could ask for more. The first tournament is over, and now the big tournament starts.
“No one cares what your numbers were or how many wins you had. It’s first one to 11.”
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