Blue Jays: Potential trade partners for Josh Donaldson

New York Yankees

This might seem a bit of a crazy thought, but the Yankees have lacked production from first base all season long. Greg Bird, Neil Walker, and Luke Voit are their first base options at the moment. They have OPS’s of .713, .640 and .574 respectively (the latter one in just 23 at-bats). Therefore, acquiring Donaldson and playing him at first, or moving rookie Miguel Andujar to first, would make their lineup even scarier and make their World Series aspirations even more realistic.

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The Blue Jays will definitely explore any trade possibilities for Donaldson but perhaps keeping him and extending a qualifying offer to the third baseman might be the better option for two reasons. If Donaldson accepts the qualifying offer then you have another year of an MVP caliber player (if he’s healthy) who you could trade at next year’s trade deadline. If he declines the potential qualifying offer, then the Blue Jays would get a compensatory pick in next years draft which could be a better prospect than any prospect they get in a trade offer. At the end of the day, it will simply depend on what the Blue Jays are offered in exchange.

Boston Red Sox

The team with the best record in baseball likely doesn’t need any more help, but you can’t rule out the possibility either.

The urgency for help isn’t as big as it was now that Rafael Devers is back from injury, but it remains to be seen how Alex Cora will handle third base going forward. In addition to Devers he has other options like Eduardo Nunez and Brock Holt, but none offer the potential upside that a healthy Donaldson could bring to the lineup.

Again though, I’m not sure the Red Sox need to focus on their offence if they’re still looking to improve the team. At 85-35 they should feel pretty good about where things are at, even if Donaldson would offer a theoretical upgrade.