Some Belated Thoughts On The Josh Donaldson Deal

It’s been quite a few days since the biggest trade of the offseason to date was consummated, but the Nelson Cruz signing intervened, preventing me from getting around to it until now. The move of Josh Donaldson from Oakland to Toronto in exchange for a significant package headed by Brett Lawrie and hotshot shortstop prospect Franklin Barreto is not only large in scope, it is complex both on and underneath the surface. Is it the Brinks Job that some pundits assert, another example of Billy Beane zigging while everyone else zags, or something altogether different?

If this trade is the solar system, then Donaldson is certainly its sun, so let’s spend some time up front attempting to define his present and future value. The big picture is pretty easy; he is coming off of a season in which he ranked 4th in the AL in WAR and finished 8th in the MVP voting. He was the last player I left off of my 10-man Fangraphs MLB Player of the Year ballot. His value is liberally spread over multiple facets of the game; his power tool outstrips his hit tool, but not by that much. He is a well above average defender, and though he is far from a speedster, his baserunning is in the average range; Donaldson was actually 8 for 8 stealing bases in 2014.

A quite similar player from Donaldson’s 2014 division, Kyle Seager, just received a seven year, $100M extension. Seager is a year younger but a year closer to free agency. It’s pretty difficult to separate the two offensively, though Seager is a little more hit-before-power, while Donaldson is a bit more power-before-hit, which might slant the long-term offensive projection a little toward the Mariner third sacker. Both played their home games in pitchers’ parks; Seager’s is more extreme overall, but not nearly as much so for lefty hitters. In any event, it’s a close call, and it could just as easily have been Donaldson getting the long term deal. Instead, he’s a Blue Jay.

Now, Donaldson is headed to much a more hitter-friendly home venue in Toronto. Let’s attempt to weed out the context from his 2014 performance, not only to assess his true offensive talent, but also to see how it might play in his new home. To do so, let’s take a look at his 2014 plate appearance outcome frequency and production by BIP type data. First, the frequency info:

FREQ – 2014
Donaldson	%	REL	PCT
K	18.7%	92	52
BB	10.9%	143	84
POP	10.9%	141	80
FLY	28.4%	101	50
LD	17.3%	83	6
GB	43.4%	100	64

That’s a pretty interesting line. The K and BB rates are very positive; his 52 and 84 percentile ranks are both well above average for a power hitter, and directly in line with his prior norms. His popup rate (80 percentile rank) is quite high, even for a power hitter, but not a deal-breaker in light of his other positives. His line drive rate (6 percentile rank) was extremely low. While some might see that as a negative, I look at it differently.

Liner rates fluctuate much more than those of other BIP types, and the fact that Donaldson posted a 56 liner rate percentile rank in 2013 suggests that his 2014 performance doesn’t represent his true talent level. Put it this way: Donaldson had a very strong offensive season despite his low liner rate. How good can he be after some positive regression? His fly and grounder rates sit neatly in the average range; there are no red, or even orange flags there.

One can only learn so much about a hitter from his frequency profile. Donaldson’s builds a strong foundation for offensive achievement, but his BIP authority will ultimately determine his overall upside. His production by BIP type data will enlighten us in this regard:

PROD – 2014
Donaldson	AVG	OBP	SLG	REL PRD	ADJ PRD	TOR PRD
FLY	0.341		1.081	201	275	327
LD	0.560		0.840	81	121	134
GB	0.303		0.330	153	134	131
ALL BIP	0.322		0.575	115	139	152
ALL PA	0.253	0.336	0.453	124	144	156

Donaldson’s actual production on each BIP type is indicated in the AVG and SLG columns, and is converted to run values and compared to MLB average in the REL PRD column. That figure then is adjusted for context, such as home park, luck, etc., in the ADJ PRD column. For the purposes of this exercise, SH and SF are included as outs and HBP are excluded from the OBP calculation. Also for the purposes of this exercise, another column, TOR PRD, is included which estimates his true talent 2014 production if half of his games were played in Skydome.

There’s a lot of telling info here, and most of it tells us that, if anything, Donaldson was even better than his actual 2014 batting line. While he did substantial damage on fly balls — .341 AVG-1.081 SLG, for a REL PRD of 201 — his hard/soft fly ball rates indicate that he would have done substantially more damage (275 ADJ PRD) in a neutral park. Put him in Toronto, and his TOR PRD surges further to 327. This is in the elite range, quite a bit better than Nelson Cruz, who we examined in this manner earlier this week.

Donaldson was incredibly unlucky on line drives in 2014, batting only .560 AVG-.840 SLG for an 81 REL PRD. Adjustment for context boosts that number considerably to 121 REL PRD in a neutral park to 134 in Skydome, where line drives to Donaldson’s preferred sector of the field often leave the building. Donaldson’s grounders are hit hard as well (151 REL PRD), though he was a bit lucky on them in 2014; adjustment for context brings his grounder ADJ PRD to 134, and his TOR PRD to 131.

On all BIP, Donaldson posted a solid but unspectacular 115 REL PRD, while the adjustment for context turbocharges that number to 139 in a neutral park, and 152 with half of his games played in Toronto. Add back his favorable K and BB data, and Donaldson’s 124 REL PRD surges to a 144 true-talent ADJ PRD, and an MVP-candidate worthy 156 when playing his home games in Toronto.

Basically, he was a .275-.355-.501 true-talent player in 2014, with a .283-.362-.534 projection as a part-time Skydome resident. It’s not a one-season aberration, either; his true-talent level was approximately .287-.370-.504 in 2013. The likely temporary reduction in his liner rate is the main difference between the two seasons. Josh Donaldson is a stud offensive player sitting squarely in his prime.

That makes him one of the more valuable commodities in the game, one would think; four years of control, strong all-around player at a position in a nice spot on the defensive spectrum. So is the package of Brett Lawrie, Sean Nolin, Kendall Graveman and Franklin Barreto befitting of such a talent? The gut response is a resounding “no”, but let’s ponder this a little bit.

The A’s first acquired Donaldson in the summer of 2008 in a similar type of deal from their perspective. They sold high on Rich Harden, with Donaldson, a humble Low-A catching prospect at the time, just a piece of the return. No matter, Donaldson immediately morphed from a sub-.300 Low-A OBP guy into a High-A offensive force after the deal, and built on that success moving forward. Did the A’s simply buy low on a talented young offensive player, or did they make adjustments that were necessary to unleash his talent after the deal? The answer is probably a combination of the two, but whichever way it leans, the A’s organization deserves a ton of credit for identifying him as a target, and helping Donaldson reach his potential.

This brings us to Lawrie, whose raw tools and pedigree are better than Donaldson’s. Are they buying low on a guy who was basically an untouchable not all that long ago, and might they make adjustments that will unleash the beast that I suspect is still in Lawrie’s bat? Lawrie has really struggled to get the ball in the air with regularity and authority in recent seasons, and the correct swing tweaks certainly could produce a player who is Donaldson’s equal with the bat.

Nolin and Graveman are nice arms that could develop into complementary pieces for the A’s, but Barreto is the other principal cog in this deal. He is, to put it simply, a stud. Not all that many teams possess such a prospect: an 18-year-old potential five-tool guy that could produce big offense from the shortstop position. The thing is, he has yet to play a single game in a full-season league, and a whole lot can happen between the Northwest League and the majors. The A’s did have a glaring need for such a high-ceiling middle infield prospect, created by the departure of Addison Russell — who was at Double-A, and much closer to being big league ready — to the Cubs in the trading deadline Jeff Samardzija/Jason Hammel trade.

This is where it gets pretty difficult for me to process the logic of the Donaldson deal. The same club that pushed its chips to the middle of the table in an ultimately failed bid for postseason success has now pulled a significant number of their 2015 chips backward. The 2014 Oakland A’s were not an old, broken-down Last Chance Corral type of club. They were a typically well-constructed A’s team – much better than they appeared to be on paper to the casual observer. Did the best all-around player on this club need to dealt, and if he did, couldn’t he have been dealt for a package weighted a bit more toward players that could help them win sooner rather than later?

Both of the aforementioned high-profile A’s trades are examples of what I would characterize as the “day trader” mentality that has become prevalent over in MLB front offices over the past decade or so. This is not a pejorative; I actually would consider the vast majority of the traits of this trend to be quite positive. The shift towards greater analytical influence in modern baseball front offices has created an economy where every player is an asset, and has a proprietary analytic calculated price, and theoretically can be moved at any time if the return price is right.

When I worked for the Mariners, we were often contacted regarding Felix Hernandez‘ potential availability. You listen, you don’t necessarily say he’s untouchable, but you know the price is so obscenely high that talks aren’t likely to get far. Teams try to overwhelm you with quantity, which can actually be a negative, due to the roster spots involved. In a perfect world, no one’s time is wasted, and you move on to more productive topics. The A’s met the high price that was set by the Cubs for Samardzija and Hammel last summer, and the Jays met the high price set by the A’s for Donaldson last week. Looking at it this way, it seems much more simple.

From the A’s fans’ perspective, however, it might not be. Their front office has a tough gig – a terrible stadium situation with no near-term remedy in sight, that hard-caps their revenue streams at an unacceptable level compared to their peers. Still, while A’s fans have been treated to more competitive clubs than they had a right to expect, the team continues to sputter at or near the finish line, in September and October. They don’t have a long-term face-of-the-franchise player to build a foundation upon.

Those latter two observations might not be mutually exclusive. Luck certainly has something to do with which of many good teams wins their last game in October, but it’s also quite possible that players who feel like part of something bigger — like the Giants — perform better at gut-check time than do player who feel more like cogs in a wheel, or chattel. It might be oversimplifying things, and it’s certainly far from the sabermetrically based observations you usually see on these pages, but comfort zone is a big deal in almost anyone’s work situation. If a star player with four years of team control like Josh Donaldson can’t have a comfort zone as an Oakland Athletic, who can?