Fantasy Baseball Existentialism: Josh Donaldson Walks it Off
I don’t really know why I’ve entitled my series of columns here “Fantasy Baseball Existentialism.” I think it was because I knew I wouldn’t really say much about fantasy baseball even though it’s a fantasy baseball column in theory, and so I added the word existentialism to like try to tip people off that this would ultimately be about, well, not fantasy baseball really. I don’t know. I’ve read two books by Camus so I don’t really know much about existentialism yet either.
So today we’re going to talk about Josh Donaldson. If you didn’t draft him in fantasy, you probably made a mistake. You should trade for him, I’d say. Swing a deal for him or keep him if you’ve got him; dude is legit.
I took Evan Longoria early and never even thought about drafting Donaldson because last year was obviously not sustainable. I figured the A’s would regress some this year and fall behind Texas in the AL West. I assumed Donaldson would fall off in a big way from his near-8-win season in 2013. That had to have been a fluke, right? A guy who hits .232/.280/.386 over his first 328 big league plate appearances without having dominated in the upper minors isn’t going to sustain a .301/.384/.499 slash line. That absolutely had to be his age-27 peak season, and the rest of his career would be a downhill slide from that epoch.
On July 8, 2008, with the A’s five games back of the Angels despite possessing a much better run differential (+63 to +24), Billy Beane flipped Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin to the first-place Cubs for Donaldson, Sean Gallagher, Matt Murton, and Eric Patterson. Nine days later, Beane traded Joe Blanton to Philadelphia for prospects Adrian Cardenas, Matt Spencer, and Josh Outman. Six years later, the fruit of those reloading efforts have paid off in a big way via J-Don. Do they actually call him that? Probably not. And so but you trade for a bunch of guys and maybe most of them don’t work out as you hoped but that’s okay if you can get a gamer like Donaldson to build a championship baseball team around.
On Wednesday night at whatever it is they’re calling the Oakland Coliseum these days (O.co Coliseum) with the A’s trailing Detroit 1-0, Donaldson jumped on a first pitch changeup from Joe Nathan and unloaded it down the left-field line for a game-winning three-run homer. After a slow start, Donaldson’s slash line is up to .276/.370/.529. He’s already been worth three wins. Since the start of last season, only Mike Trout has been more valuable than Donaldson.
Rather than regressing, Donaldson is flourishing. Rather than regressing, the A’s just keep on winning. They have the second-best record in baseball one year after winning 96 games. The year before that, they won 94 games. They’re on pace for 96 wins this season. Their +100 run differential is by far the best in the game.
Maybe it’s time to stop waiting for a fall that’s never coming with these guys. Maybe it’s time to stop doubting Donaldson, who has now sustained a star-level performance for a season and two months. Maybe it’s time to stop doubting Billy Beane, who has managed to build a roster that appears well on its way to a third straight AL West crown despite one of the game’s smallest payrolls. Jarrod Parker and A.J. Griffin go down for the season with elbow injuries and Dan Straily gets demoted due to ineffectiveness, and yet the A’s 6th, 7th, and 8th starters slide right in there and pitch effectively.
I mean who in the world does Jesse Chavez think he is? Why is a 30-year-old journeyman with a career 5.48 ERA suddenly pitching like a top-of-the-rotation starter?
Back to Donaldson, I happened to be at last night’s game, though I didn’t show up until the sixth inning. My co-workers and I were going to the game to celebrate the departure of a guy who quit. If you’ve ever had a job you hated, you know what I’m talking about when I use the word “celebrate.” I mean I guess compared to war, slavery, abject poverty, violence, and other miseries in life, having a middle class office job you don’t like isn’t so bad. If you can afford to go to an A’s game, you probably shouldn’t complain too much even if all you actually do is petulantly whine all the time.
And so but when I showed up to a baseball game in the sixth inning I knew right then and there that somehow my life really had gotten off track. I mean not even a lowly Dodgers fan would show up that late. But again, if you’ve ever had a job that was pretty miserable, you can relate to over-indulging on the honey mead and losing track of time and the truly important things in life like baseball. I don’t know why baseball matters, but intuitively I know it really does, and to feel the game slipping away from me is truly frightening. If I no longer love baseball, am I capable of loving anything? Or is it just that in this Year of the 99-Cent Taco, I’d rather read Infinite Jest and consume literature instead of sport? Doing anything besides consuming, after all, is clearly out of the question. In a late-capitalist society one is defined solely via their consumption, no?
And so but there was a lot of resentment festering at this A’s game. Some of us were probably envious of our escaping co-worker. Some of us were mad at ourselves for having gotten to the game so late. Then, as Craig Gentry led away from first and Coco Crisp from third, and I wondered whether Gentry would attempt to steal the bag to put the winning run in scoring position, Donaldson delivered the dinger that would momentarily recall me to baseball, and to life. Donaldson stole victory from the jaws of defeat and provided the intoxication of winning to a group of co-workers lost in the modern world, badly in need of something greater than themselves. Can remarkable greatness of this thrifty Oakland team save the lost souls of the Bay Area? Can they teach us what it is to love the game once more?
With one of the game’s truly elite players in Donaldson, maybe this will be the year Beane’s stuff works in the playoffs. Josh Donaldson, elite player? That seems weird to write, but WAR don’t lie. As I recall Donaldson’s game-winning home run sailing into the bleachers, I can’t help but think: has Billy Beane created the perfect entertainment?
Mark Reynolds graduated from Dominican University of California in 2008 with a degree in Political Science. Since graduating, he's been "blogging" about baseball and other topics.
I’m hoping Mark’s supervisor from his day job doesn’t read Fangraphs.
or that grantland editors do. this is great!
My First Amendment rights are pretty strong here!
And so…
Also, Infinite Jest is pretty overrated and downright annoying in some respects. I read it after posters over on BaseballThinkFactory.com were gushing about it years ago and regretted the amount of time I put into that book. Switch to something else if you aren’t hooked. (If you like long pieces of recent fiction / quasi-literature, try Underworld which also features a bit of a baseball theme.)
I finished Infinite Jest. I found the first 200 pages annoying, but once I got into it, I thought it was very good.
“And so but” appears a few times.
maybe my english isn’t as advanced as yours.
or maybe you’re channeling sarah palin?
I was channeling David Foster Wallace, not Sarah Palin.
Which thing I found delightful, as a fan.
Same difference. Hah!
As for Mark Reynolds’ miserable job, one sees merely the whole effort of his body straining to raise to summon the will, the effort, the demeanor, to don those dockers, button that gap shirt, banter that knucklehead that writes the checks, to do that and to know that he will do it again more a hundred times over. Wednesday, at the very end of that day’s long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved, he can leave the office. Then Mark watches the sun rush down and knows that its returns means he will have to push that huge stone up again toward the summit. But not now, now Mark goes to the As game.
It is during that baseball game, that pause, that Mark interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man clambering out of the BART train, crossing the bridge and interminable parking lot with a heavy yet measured step toward O.co but also tomorrow’s torment of which he will never know the end. Those 3 innings, Joe Nathan’s meatball, like a breathing-space (that also returns with every game as surely as his suffering returns with every workday), that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the office and gradually sinks into his seat, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If this story of Mark is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Mark, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his time at the ballpark. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.
I think I’m the anti-hero.
Minor nitpick. Slider, not change, for the walk off. Otherwise, yay, article!
You are right–Nathan doesn’t throw a change. I figured 82 mph with arm-side run had to be change, but it was just a horrible slider.
There’s actually more going on than besides “first 328 big league plate appearances = bad” and “Donaldson since 2013 – good”.
Donaldson got a cup of coffee in 2010 and mostly caught (plus DH, PH, and 1B), but did nothing in 14 games/34 plate appearances. He was sent back to AAA to learn 3B, and eventually made it back to Oakland out of Spring Training in 2012, sharing 3B with Nerd Sogard and others. After slashing .147/.155/.232 through 27 G/97 PA, he was sent to AAA mid-June. This put him at 41 G/134 PA and .150/.168/.244 for his career.
He then tore up AAA and earned a recall mid-August, and hit .290/.356/.489 over the final 47 G/194 PA. He of course continued into 2013 and keeps going.
So, after a position change and a false start — or since 8/14/12 — Donaldson has slashed .293/.376/.504 in 258 G/1105 PA.
celebrate with a dip in arroyo viejo creek!
Dude — “They’re +100 run differential is by far the best in the game.” They’re?
Ugh, bad one. Fixed–thank you.
Camus is grand. The Stranger is such a good read.
The Stranger is terrific. I didn’t enjoy The Fall as much.
“If you can afford to go to an A’s game, you probably shouldn’t complain too much even if all you actually do is petulantly whine all the time.”
Anyone can afford an A’s game. I would be whining that I couldn’t afford to see the Giants.
I was in win now mode in a dynasty last year and traded a $1 Donaldson for a month and a half rental of Miguel Cabrera. Donaldson outperformed Cabrera for September and I wish I had him back now.
Also, if you like honey mead, try Rabbit’s Foot Meadery in Sunnyvale.
I call him J-Dizzle but that could just be me.
J-Dizzle… my nizzle, fo’ shizzle.
You should check out Sartre who was a rival to Camus. Reading opposing viewpoints creates critical thinking, and should help to expand your existential viewpoint. De Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” is another enlightening piece of philosophy from that time period as well. I think that she was even smarter than Sartre and Camus, but never got the recognition, because she had breasts.
Kierkegaard tells us that when a fantasy team owner and a Josh Donaldson “begin to suspect that they were made for each other, it is time to have the courage to break it off; for by going on they have everything to lose and nothing to gain. This seems a paradox, and it is so for the feeling, but not for the understanding.” Sell high now, and cherish the times you’ve had together.
I never really figured out what this piece of writing is about, but I enjoyed it immensely.