Donaldson Will DH and it Isn’t the Worst Thing

Don’t worry guys, there’s nothing wrong with Josh Donaldson’s arm according to John Gibbons. It went from “hanging a little” in the spring to dead. Just…dead.

One game in, and it looks like Kendrys Morales is the casualty to JD’s (temporary?) dead arm issue, and it’s actually a pretty good move.

A few days ago, I pondered whether the Blue Jays should take a look at a Morales platoon with Yangervis Solarte if he kept struggling against RHP, just to keep the number of shitty at-bats to a minimum.

This is clearly not as crippling as one would think it’d be. Over the short term, yeah, you’d want your MVP-level player in there at his position, but Solarte making starts against RHP isn’t going to be bad unless he really fucks up defensively. It’s not a bad move if you consider you’re trading a little defense to upgrade Morales’ bat in the lineup.

Solarte has been much better against RHP the past two years than Morales has been. Look at the numbers. It’s a sizable sample size with both guys getting over 700 PA over the two years, and Solarte has him beat pretty much across the board.

Morales shouldn’t be banished to a strict platoon guy just yet, because among everybody with at least 200 batted ball events over those two years, his exit velocity is ranked 17^th at 91.5 MPH. A .240 BABIP for that is just…yuck. That’s a topic for another time, though, but right now, a slumping/unlucky Morales taking a back seat to the more productive Solarte vs RHP is a good move. Just avert your eyes if Solarte has to take many hacks against leftys.

Donaldson told reporters after the game that the throwing issue didn’t affect his hitting. The team was facing Luis Severino and then that Yankees bullpen, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt there.

This is just the second game and we shouldn’t get too freaked out, but I don’t know. There’s something worrisome about your elite third baseman looks like John Lester throwing to first. Hopefully this is something that’s healed and not an omen of another ghastly year.