Courtesy of ESPN
God I wish Dave Dombrowski got to Boston a year earlier. A guy who gets aroused trading unproven prospects full of potential for legit major league talent. The Blue Jays gave up their top prospect and a few other players to land Donaldson, but in his first season in Toronto all he did was hit .297 with 41 HR and 123 RBI en route to winning the AL MVP. OK I guess. Meanwhile the Sox spent $95 million on the abomination that is the Pablo Sandoval contract. Not to mention Donaldson isn’t arbitration eligible until 2018! He made about $4 mil in his MVP year, which bumped up to $11 mil this year whereas Pablo’s making a cool $18 mil to ride the pine. (*Fun little note – Baseball Reference’s Top 10 most similar players to Pablo include Corey Koskie, Shea Hillenbrand and Aaron Boone. Gross). At the time of the trade Donaldson’s WAR was a ridiculous 15.4 the past two seasons, trailing only Mike Trout in the majors.
The Blue Jays gave up third baseman Brett Lawrie (injury prone career .262 hitter), right-hander Kendall Graveman (Oakland’s No. 7 prospect after 2014), left-hander Sean Nolin (Oakland’s No. 8 prospect after 2014/No. 14 after 2015) and top shortstop prospect Franklin Barreto (Oakland’s No. 2 prospect after 2014/No. 1 after 2015, No. 86 ranked prospect by Baseball America after 2014).
Ohh what could have been..
This.
Credit: Peter Llewellyn-USA TODAY Sports
VS
Pablo Sandoval’s first start of the year: 0-for-3 with 3 strikeouts, 1 error and 1 exploded belt. https://t.co/3OmRf4WyBF
— Jared Carrabis (@Jared_Carrabis) April 9, 2016
The 300s 