MLB teams
Tony Blengino, Special to ESPN.com 9y

Paul Goldschmidt: The Miguel Cabrera of the NL

MLB, Arizona Diamondbacks

If you could build the perfect hitter in a lab, you'd set the bar pretty high.

Your ideal hitter would hit the ball in the air often, with power to all fields. He'd square the ball up on a regular basis, posting high line-drive rates annually. He'd rarely roll over and hit weak grounders to the pull side. With all of that power, he'd likely draw more than his share of walks, and though his K rate might not be the lowest, it would be contained at a manageable level. Hmm, this basically sounds like peak-level Miguel Cabrera.

Cabrera took a few baby steps backward from peak level in 2014, mostly due to a mysteriously low BB rate, but he's back on his game this season. But very quietly, a National League counterpart to Cabrera has emerged of late, one who profiles similarly: Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt.

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