This is not the only reason I think Josh Donaldson is overrated, but this is a fun one. Surrounding Donaldson in the Jays lineup is–Sorry, I just started giggling uncontrollably. Okay, okay, OKAY! Get it together, Grey! Surrounding–*giggle* Damn, it’s tough for me to get through this. Okay…*talking fast* Curtis Granderson, Justin Smoak, Kendrys Morales, Tulo, Yangervis, Devon Travis, Randal Grichuk and sometimes Y. The Y in this case is spelled why and it’s Steve Pearce. Yo, the Jays getting the Giants’ leftovers? Brian Sabean would even shudder at this hodgepodge of harsh-my-mallows and be like, “Nah, kid, they’re on the wrong side of ugly.” The Jays would be better off promoting every minor leaguer in their system whose last name starts with Guerr– and be done with it. (There’s three of them, by the way. I’m thinking the Jays might draft alphabetically.) Their minor lea-Guerrs, so to speak. Anyway, why is Josh Donaldson overrated for 2018 fantasy baseball?
Everyone know the expression ‘dead cat bounce?’ If not, I will explain after this unnecessary sentence explaining how I will explain. It’s when a stock temporarily bounces back, then disappears into oblivion. Tarantino seems to love to attempt to make an actor dead cat bounce, likely because he had so much success doing it with John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Jackie Brown was one giant dead cat bounce with Pam Grier and Robert Forster. There was Daryl Hannah and David Carradine in Kill Bill; Michael Madsen in an array of Tarantino joints and so on. I contend (for the featherweight belt) that Josh Donaldson’s 2017 was a dead cat bounce. He’s done, and last year’s apparent bounce back in the 2nd half is hiding it. His K-rate went up to 22.4% from 17% the year before. Um, not good. Percentage of balls he hit in the strike zone went down; swinging strike rate went up and total contact went down. His HR/FB% was up to 25.6 and his career mark is 18.1%, so problems there. His 2nd half HR/FB% of 27.6% is goofy, especially while his hard contact was falling. His Hard Contact fell last year to its lowest mark since he was on the A’s. This is funny (not funny), his month of August saw a 31.6% HR/FB for 12 homers, while his Hard Contact rate was similar to that of Derek Dietrich and Ben Zobrist. Haha, yeah, no. This is all assuming he stays completely healthy too. Oh… *counts to the 487th decimal place of pi* …Kay. Donaldson still hits a ton of fly balls, so maybe he can get into some power, but counting stats are gonna be poor; he’s losing his plate discipline; he would be ranked 40 spots later than he’s currently going if not for an obscene August and his health is a question mark. At his current price tag of the 2nd round, you’re betting Donaldson is gonna be Travolta after Pulp Fiction vs. Daryl Hannah after Kill Bill? I’m not.
