Good for the Minnesota Twins for refusing to rest on the laurels of a 101-win season. They’ve added a couple of back-end starters in Homer Bailey and Rich Hill, both of whom can pitch quite well when not hurt, and bolstered their bullpen with more low-risk signings. But now they’ve made a big splash, filling a major need by signing Josh Donaldson to a four-year, $92 million deal. It’s very much a deal for the present, as Donaldson will play at 34 this year and thus at 37 in the final year of the contract. At that point, he’ll almost certainly be a worse player on offense and defense than he is at present. But for the Twins, who are trying to win right now, it’s a good short-term investment, even knowing the long-term outlook.
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The Twins’ offense as a whole was not a problem last year — it set a franchise record with 307 homers, with some help from the Happy Fun Ball, and finished fourth in the AL in OBP at .338. They did have a few isolated weak spots, however, including first base, where the now-departed C.J. Cron posted just a .311 OBP and .469 SLG, good for a league-average wRC+ of just 101. That was several points below the major-league average for first basemen (105) and put him below the median for the position, too. The Twins also have Miguel Sanó, coming off his best year at the plate but a chronically below-average defender at third base. He was the worst defensive third basemen on a per-game basis by UZR last year, costing the Twins 6.7 runs compared to the average defender despite playing barely more than half of the team’s innings at third.
Enter Donaldson, who replaces Sanó at third and slides the giant third baseman over to first, replacing Cron and filling a spot the Twins had yet to address this offseason anyway. I don’t think it’s a stretch to think this can be a four-win upgrade for the Twins this season, although I am baking in an assumption that Sanó will be competent at first right away — which isn’t based on much, other than that I think he’s a decent athlete for his size and his hands are good enough to make him a solid receiver there.
Donaldson gets on base a lot, finishing 19th in the majors in OBP last year, and his bat was worth about 30 runs over Cron’s last year, using data from FanGraphs. He’s still a good defender, not as elite as he was in his late 20s and early 30s, but clearly above average by every public measure. Having his glove for 150 games is worth at least a win above what the Twins got from Sanó and Marwin Gonzalez (a poor defender at third over his career, although his UZR there was positive in a small sample last year).
Donaldson just has to not be worse and Sanó just has to be adequate at first for the Twins to have improved themselves in what was probably the most straightforward route available to them this offseason. They could have used Gerrit Cole or Anthony Rendon — who couldn’t? — but they were never going to outbid the top suitors for those guys. We could debate whether they’re better off with Donaldson or, say, Zack Wheeler and Hyun-Jin Ryu given the contracts those two starters signed; I think all three are good short-term deals with similar risk profiles due to the players involved and the length of the contracts.
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By 2023, this deal could look awful. Donaldson has already run into injuries, so I wouldn’t even expect him to still be at third base by then, although he’ll probably still have the OBP skills. It seems very clear, however, that the Twins are at least several wins better off with him on the team, and given they’re likely to have some regression across the roster from 2019 to 2020, this is a very shrewd signing — and with the White Sox coming on hard this winter, a necessary one.
The signing leaves Atlanta and Washington without great alternatives to fill their own third-base holes. Atlanta has Austin Riley and Johan Camargo as default options, but neither managed so much as a .280 OBP last year, and it would be a leap of faith for a contender to assume Camargo will regain his 2018 form or that Riley can make a huge improvement in his plate discipline for 2020. The Nationals are in somewhat better shape, as Carter Kieboom can start for them at second or third base, with Howie Kendrick and Asdrúbal Cabrera filling in the missing innings.
Perhaps this pushes Atlanta to deal from its trove of pitching and outfield prospects to try to get one of the big targets in a trade this winter. I don’t think any team, except possibly the Dodgers, could top a strong Atlanta offer for Nolan Arenado, and with Colorado’s chronic need for pitching quantity, Atlanta might be its ideal trade partner.
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