Blue Jays Player of the Week: Josh Donaldson Dominance

The Blue Jays continue to frustrate with their potential and their failure to execute.  The Jays have the second largest difference between their actual record and their pythagorean W/L estimate. PythWL: 28-24. Actual: 23-29. Going by their run differential, this team should be leading the AL East by a healthy margin at this point. By simple rating system, the Blue Jays are 6th in the league with a 0.6 mark, yet the Jays keep finding ways to lose games they should win. However, things have improved this week from the previous two weeks. They went 3-3 from May 25 to May 31. They haven’t lost any ground in the AL East but all 3 losses this week could easily have been wins. What a change this May compared to May of last year. Last May they went 21-9, this May? 12-17. Perhaps though, unlike last year, the Jays season will only improve from May on. 

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One player attempted to put the Jays on his back and carry them single handedly through this week—he very nearly succeeded. He had 6 home runs, 11 RBIs, 2 doubles, 3 singles, 3 walks and just one strikeout over 25 ABs. His slash line was .440/.483/1.240. His WPA was nearly triple that of any of his teammates. He hit huge home runs in the highest leverage situations. Undoubtedly, Josh Donaldson was this week’s PoW for the Blue Jays. In fact, he was the player of the week for all of baseball. His WPA of 1.4 was the highest in MLB as was his WAR total of 1.1.

Think about that. By himself, Donaldson increased the likelihood of the Blue Jays winning by nearly one and half entire games—in a week. Donaldson’s week was the best we’ve seen from a Jay this year. He hit home runs in four straight games. Two days in a row he spoiled a David Robertson save with a home run. There was the 3 run walk off shot on Tuesday, the tying solo shot on Wednesday, the 3 run game tying dinger on Friday and a go ahead solo homer on Sunday (which the bullpen eventually squandered). Oh and his defence was nothing to shake a stick at either.

Jose Bautista had a great week at the plate (.421/.500/.684) and Mark Buehrle’s very odd start was probably the pitching performance of the week but both were still far behind Donaldson.

Roberto Osuna had a rough week giving up the losing runs in two games. It’s difficult to blame him as he’s been excellent and over used all season. R.A Dickey found himself in the Razzie conversation again with a poor start but the Razzie goes to Edwin Encarnacion who only had a single and two walks over 24 ABs. Yes, EE was PoW last week—quite a change but that’s been the tale of his season so far.

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