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Throwback Thursday: Blue Jays acquire Matt Chapman and Josh Donaldson from Athletics
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Photo credit: © John E. Sokolowski - Imagn Images
Ryley Delaney
May 29, 2025, 18:00 EDTUpdated: May 29, 2025, 16:28 EDT
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For the first time this season, the Toronto Blue Jays play the Athletics.
The Blue Jays have had two very good third basemen in the past decade. Both of them were acquired from the Athletics during the off-season, seven years apart. In this edition of Throwback Thursday, we’ll look at the Josh Donaldson and Matt Chapman trade, considering one player the Jays traded is a probable starter for the upcoming series.
If you missed last week’s Throwback Thursday, we looked at the Joe Carter trade with the San Diego Padres. With that being said, let’s dig into the two trades the Blue Jays made with the Athletics!

The Josh Donaldson trade

Drafted by the Chicago Cubs in 2007, Josh Donaldson started his career as a catcher and was eventually traded to the Athletics in a midseason deal in 2008. Donaldson debuted in 2010, but only received 34 plate appearances before spending the entirety of the 2011 season in the minor leagues.
In 2012, he earned more opportunities with the Athletics, but spent half the season in Triple-A. By 2013, Donaldson moved to third base and became a regular, slashing .301/.384/.499 with 24 home runs in 668 plate appearances for a 147 wRC+ and a 7.2 fWAR. In 2014, he hit a then-career-best 29 home runs in 695 plate appearances for a 130 wRC+.
On November 28, 2014, the Blue Jays sent Brett Lawrie, Sean Nolin, Kendall Graveman, and Franklin Barreto to the Athletics for the third baseman. Graveman has become a dependable reliever and was the best player the Athletics received. Barreto was a top Blue Jays’ prospect at the time, but he only had 237 big league plate appearances. He’s currently with the Baltimore Orioles organization, albeit he’s on the 60-day injured list.
Nolin still pitches, but has pitched just 61 innings in the big leagues in five seasons. The 35-year-old currently pitches for Piratas de Campeche in Mexico. Lawrie, a Canadian, was the major league player going back the other way, and he hit a career-high 16 home runs in 2015, but his career fizzled out after that.
Donaldson, on the other hand, was one of the best players in baseball in 2015. That season, he slashed .297/.371/.568 with 41 home runs in 711 plate appearances for a 154 wRC+ and an 8.7 fWAR, winning the American League MVP that season as the Blue Jays made the postseason for the first time since 1993.
The third baseman was great the following season as well, slashing .284/.404/.549 with 37 home runs in 700 plate appearances for a 157 wRC+ and a 6.8 fWAR. His most memorable moment as a Blue Jay was scoring the game-winning run to sweep the Texas Rangers in the 2016 American League Division Series.
Donaldson was great when he was healthy in 2017, slashing .270/.385/.559 with 33 home runs in 496 plate appearances for a 151 wRC+ and a 4.9 fWAR. Unfortunately, the Jays failed to make the postseason again until 2020. He remained with the team into the 2018 season, but was injured before the trade deadline, with the Jays receiving Julian Merryweather, one of the worst trades Ross Atkins has made since becoming the Jays’ general manager.
He remained a productive big leaguer for the next three seasons, playing for the Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins, before being traded to the New York Yankees before the 2022 season. Donaldson had mediocre results over his final two seasons, retiring shortly before the beginning of the 2024 season.

Matt Chapman trade

Donaldson’s final trade in the big leagues came on March 13, 2022. Three days later, the Blue Jays acquired another third baseman from the Athletics: Matt Chapman.
The third baseman was drafted in the first round of the 2014 draft, making his big league debut in 2017 with the Athletics, where he slashed .234/.313/.472 with 14 home runs in 326 plate appearances for a 110 wRC+. Chapman became a regular in 2018, slashing .278/.356/.508 with 24 home runs in 616 plate appearances for a 139 wRC+. Thanks to strong defence at the hot corner, Chapman won his first of two Platinum Gloves.
His 2019 season saw him hit a career-high 36 home runs in 670 plate appearances for 125 wRC+, winning his second consecutive Platinum Glove. Chapman’s 2020 was plagued by injury, and his 2021 season wasn’t much better, slashing .210/.314/.403 with 27 home runs for a career-worst 101 wRC+. The third baseman won his third Gold Glove that season.
After Marcus Semien departed for the Texas Rangers, the Blue Jays needed another infielder, with them being connected to the Cleveland Guardians’ third baseman, Jose Ramirez. Eventually, they settled on Chapman, trading Gunnar Hoglund, Kevin Smith, Zach Logue, and Kirby Snead to the Athletics for the third baseman.
I was always pretty high on Smith because of his strong defence, good speed, and pop, but his big league career never panned out. In four seasons in the big leagues, Smith slashed .173/.215/.301 with eight home runs in 333 plate appearances. Logue was another player I was high on, but he also had awful results in the big leagues, posting a 7.20 ERA and a 5.72 FIP in 70 innings pitched. He’s having a good time in Korea this season, as he has a 3.32 ERA and a 2.50 FIP. Returning to the big leagues isn’t out of the question.
Snead had good results with the Jays in 2021, albeit in limited action. His first full season in the big leagues was in 2022, where he had a 5.84 ERA and a 4.61 FIP in 44.2 innings pitched. For his MLB career, Snead had a 5.09 ERA and a 4.25 FIP in 74.1 innings pitched.
The centrepiece of this trade for the Athletics was Gunnar Hoglund, the Blue Jays’ first-round pick in the 2021 draft. He never pitched in the Jays’ system due to Tommy John surgery, but he has worked himself to the big leagues, where he has a 5.13 ERA and a 5.39 FIP in 26.1 innings pitched, or five starts. Hoglund is the expected starter for Saturday’s game.
In the end, the Blue Jays also won this trade. In 2022, Chapman slashed .229/.324/.433 with 27 home runs in 621 plate appearances for a 118 wRC+ and a 3.9 fWAR. He was a big reason the Jays made the postseason for the first time in a full season since 2016.
Chapman regressed in 2023, slashing .240/.330/.424 with 17 home runs in 581 plate appearances for a 110 wRC+ and 3 fWAR. For the fourth time in his career, Chapman was named the American League’s Gold Glove winner at third base.
That off-season, Chapman signed with the San Francisco Giants, giving the Blue Jays a pick after the fourth round, using it to select outfield prospect Nick Mitchell. The prospect was eventually traded in the Andres Gimenez deal.
Chapman found success with the Giants in 2024, slashing .247/.328/.463 with 27 home runs in 647 plate appearances for a 121 wRC+ and a 5.4 fWAR, his best season since 2019. Chapman also earned his fifth Gold Glove, his first in the National League. So far this season, also with the Giants, Chapman is slashing .224/.342/.408 with nine home runs in 231 plate appearances for a 116 wRC+ and a 1.8 fWAR with strong defence.
Overall, these were two good trades that helped the Blue Jays make the postseason without giving up a whole lot in the process.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for Blue Jays Nation, Oilersnation, and FlamesNation. They can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.

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