Atlanta Braves signing of Josh Donaldson paying dividends

The Atlanta Braves made a splash with the signing of Josh Donaldson to a 1 year, $23 million contract this past offseason. Early results were rather underwhelming, but Donaldson and his mullet are proving their value as of late.

Johan Camargo was coming off a breakout year at third base with the Atlanta Braves where he followed hit a surprising 19 home runs after hitting just 16 home runs prior as a professional.

Another third baseman, Austin Riley was looming as a prospect, with all the pieces starting to come together. So, the logical thing was to go out and sign a third baseman, right?

Let’s talk about the here and now.

Josh Donaldson has been on fire for the past month. Over the last 28 games, (through July 14) he’s hit 13 of his 21 home runs and driven in 25 of his 51 RBI.

That’s the type of play that MLB was accustomed to at the peak of the ‘Bringer of Rain’ from 2015-2017 where he ranked second in all of baseball in WAR behind only Mike Trout.

In 2019, the best may be yet to come.

Donaldson’s career numbers don’t show much differentiation from month-to-month, August has clearly been his best month, hitting .305 with 42 home runs. In 2018, he didn’t have an August, as he was out with a calf injury.

There are differences in Atlanta Braves Josh Donaldson and Toronto Blue Jays Josh Donaldson. While he’s not on pace to match his 2015 MVP season, Donaldson is on pace to bat about .260 with 35 home runs and 84 RBI.

He’s also on pace to draw around 85 walks.

Those numbers aren’t too far removed from his average numbers for 2015-2017. Over those three years, Donaldson’s hit .285 with an average of 37 homers,100 RBI, and 86 base on balls a season.

In 2017, Donaldson did miss some time, playing 42 fewer games than he did in 2016.

Defensively, he’s made many excellent plays, and makes the routine ones. In 2019, Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado, who’s won four straight gold gloves, has five defensive runs saved, and Donaldson has four.

If you’re looking for reasons to be mad at Donaldson (my, my, Braves fans love to do that) you can harp on the fact that his average is lower than in his best seasons (but trending up), and he’s on pace for 160 strikeouts.

That would be his career-high in whiffs — prior, the most he struck out in any single season was 133 times. It just so happens he won the MVP that season.

Now, was signing Donaldson the right move?

It doesn’t appear to have hurt a thing. Camargo has served as a fine bench piece, and Riley has been an ample and unlikely fill-in after Ender Inciarte tweaked his back.

Once Ender is ready to come back (and it’s soon) we’ll have a problem of having way too much depth. And that’s hardly a problem at all.

One scenario instead of signing Donaldson would have been to start Camargo and maybe spend more money on an outfielder.

If the Atlanta Braves decided on A.J. Pollock or Andrew McCutchen, we’d be out of luck due to injuries. Michael Brantley (.324 avg, 12 HR, 49 RBI, $16 million this season) would have been the ‘right’ choice, but Nick Markakis (.288 avg, 8 HR, 52 RBI, $4 million this season) has produced similarly enough for 75% less money.

Additionally, could we have reasonably expected Camargo (.272 avg, 19 HR, 76 RBI) to repeat his 2018 success after never having shown that level of production before?

Perhaps we could have dipped into the incredibly volatile relief pitching market.

Out of the top 15 names on the market, only two have pitched to a sub 3.00 ERA m– Zach Britton ($13 million/year) and Adam Ottavino ($9 million/yr) for the New York Yankees. The fact is, relievers are an incredibly risky investment.

Signing Josh Donaldson was good. For it to be really worth it, Donaldson needs to produce down the stretch and into the postseason.

To date, he’s certainly done his part, but more offense wouldn’t hurt. Fewer strikeouts would breed more contact and likely, a higher batting average.

More runners on base for an offense rivaling the Atlanta Braves best from 2003 sounds good, doesn’t it?

For now, remember your umbrella. The Bringer of Rain has arrived. It doesn’t look like it’s going to let up in 2019.