Josh by-god Donaldson.
As much as it would have been neat for this entire series to have consisted of smaller, lesser-known parts of the 2015 Blue Jays (Maybs a cool idea? Let's bank it.), the reality is that the team's stars are also a huge part of why the team is so much fun to watch. That statement is more true now, with the team coming off of a 3-game sweep of the Yankees to move within 1.5 games of them for the AL East lead IN NEW YORK, than any point in this season. When I posted the first edition of this series on July 6th, I said that it would a good time for casuals to get on the bandwagon.
I love being right.
Unfortunately, the first subject of this series, Danny Valencia was designated for assignment by the team, ultimately ending up with the Oakland Athletics. I was both surprised and sad to see him go, as he was more or less my "guy" on the team, but him leaving also doesn't take away the things he added to the team this season or the forever-positive memories that I will associate with him. And hey, I was almost certain that he was going to get picked up by the Yankees, so having him play for Oakland, my AL West side-b's, ain't so bad.
He's been replaced by Mr. 80-grade smile, in-a-constant-state-of-bewilderment-at-the-offense-he-is-a-part-of, Ben Revere.
As implied in that last run on hyphen thing, the 2015 Blue Jays offense is fucking out of control. So many hits. So many runs. SO MANY HOME RUNS. When it rains it pours and also it is raining all the time.
Since #2, the Blue Jays traded Jose Reyes for Josh-Donaldson-except-he's-a-shortstop, Troy Tulowitzki. Also they traded for David Price, who is fucking elite. Also, now the bullpen is also good? How did this all happen in the span of a week? How did the team address every need they had?
It's a crazy time to be Jays fan right now. Regular season home games that are selling out and it's not even because of giveaways. The starting rotation has been lights out. Troy Tulowitzki and David Price play for the team and that is so weird to say and type that I still barely believe it typing out this sentence.
But some things haven't changed at all this year and one of those is the level that Josh Donaldson has been producing all year.
The Jays got Donaldson from Oakland in what is looking more and more like the biggest steal in recent memory. The Jays gave up 4 players for Dosh, but I still think "Billy, how did you give us this player?" every time I watch him play. Even if those prospects work out well, it still doesn't make sense to me. Josh is the real deal. He is the best third baseman in the whole world and it's not even close. Never mind that, he is in close contention to be the best player in the world. There's a real possibility that he could overtake Mike Trout in Wins Above Replacement (WAR, my fav stat) by the end of the season. Mike Trout! In WAR! WAR is Mike Trout's thing! He's the high WAR guy!
WAR is a good place to start with Josh. The stat is more or less the closest thing to an objective calculation of a player's total value. It's like the player ratings they assign to guys in video games, except based on real math. They take every number they can about a guy's offense, defense and baserunning and throw it in a blender and out comes an evaluation of a player's total contribution to his team.
Josh Donaldson's current WAR is 6.2. That is not just good and not just very good, but is truly elite. Only two players in baseball, Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, have a higher WAR than Josh and they are not leading him by much.
What I'm trying to say is that Josh is very good at the following things:
Hitting baseballs for average (getting lots of hits)
Hitting baseballs for power (hitting them far so that the team scores)
Taking walks (makes it easy for his teammates to hit him home!)
Catching baseballs (he gets to a lot of them)
Innings in which Josh doesn't contribute anything positive to the team are getting more and more scarce. It is fucking crazy to watch.
My dad and I talk about baseball a whole lot. It's one of the main things we talk about. The way that Josh has been playing this year reminds me of something my dad told me once. He said that in the 80's one of the most exciting things to watch in baseball was to watch Don Mattingly play for the New York Yankees. Even though the Yankees were uncharacteristically mediocre in that decade, Mattingly maintained a constant level of intensity and production that made him stand out from everyone in the league. In my dad's words: "You could tell, every play he was putting out this demeanor 'Hit it to me.'" He didn't just want to win, but he wanted to be the guy that made them win. I get that vibe from Josh. Recently, the Jays had come back from two 3-run deficits in a game against the Kansas City Royals (side note, fuck the Royals) and were tied with them in the 10th inning. Josh stepped in with Tulo on 1st and as soon as he looked out at Franklin Morales, I legitemately, not just for the sake of the narrative of this blog post, thought to myself "Josh is winning this game, right now." He hit a walk-off single.
Consider the following comparison:
It's not just that it's a walk-off home run, but that in each case the team is down by two runs, and they are still able to win the game for their teams.
Also, that was THE SECOND walk-off home run by Josh this year.
I could prate about Josh forever, but instead I'll just offer the following:
And, most importantly:
He even looks directly into the camera before doing it!
He is such a joy to watch. For every superstar that Jays have on the team this, and there are many, Josh's star shines the brightest. He is a supergiant that will not leave it's supernova phase (yeah, I took first year astronomy) and is by all abounts, the driving force of the Blue Jays spectacular offense. As much as I like to focus on the little things in baseball and make the role players or lesser-knowns my favourite, Josh is just the best.
He is hyper-competitive and backs up everything he says. The Blue Jays would be good, but not great without him. He elevates them to another level in pretty much everything he does.
Josh Donaldson is a Blue Jay.
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