Will Toronto Blue Jays Josh Donaldson be the steal of the 2018 draft?

Third base is loaded with some of the highest profile players in the game, but the Blue Jays’ Josh Donaldson will give you elite production at a fraction of the cost.

Early mock drafts suggest there will only be four elite third basemen taken in the first two rounds of 2018 drafts. This means that Josh Donaldson could be the steal of the draft if he falls past the first 24 picks.

Rockies’ Nolan Arenado is one of the most consistently brilliant hitters of his generation. Last season, Colorado’s superstar scored 100 runs with 130 RBI, 37 home runs and a .309 AVG. No other player comes close to three straight years of at least 130 RBI.

Although he faced a dip in home runs and RBI production, Kris Bryant posted a higher OPS than in his MVP-season of 2016. Last season, he led the third base position with 111 runs and was second in walks (95). The 25-year-old is rapidly becoming the face of MLB, and it would not be a surprise to see him finish the year as a top-five hitter in fantasy baseball.

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Orioles Manny Machado started slowly but exploded to hit 33 home runs. Over the last three years, he has averaged 96 runs, 35 home runs and 92 RBI. He hit just .230 in the first half of 2017, and his batting average never recovered. You should expect a full year of elite production in 2018.

Regardless of the format; roto, points or categories, Indians’ Jose Ramirez was the best third baseman last season. Don’t think of him as the same light-hitting speedster that debuted in 2013. Last year, Ramirez led the position with 91 extra-base hits. He also swiped 17 bags and hit .318.

Due to his age and the appalling start he made to the 2017 campaign, Donaldson looks likely to drop from this elite tier of four. Expect him to fall to the second tier with players like Justin Turner, Anthony Rendon, Alex Bregman and Mike Moustakas.

Donaldson hit the DL with a calf injury in April and missed 38 games. He looked nothing like a former MVP-winner when he returned, hitting .250 through the All-Star break. There were many people claiming this decline was inevitable and signaled the end of Donaldson’s tenure as an elite hitter.

And then, just like that, everything returned to normal.

We saw some fantastic performances at the end of the season, with Giancarlo Stanton, J.D. Martinez, Rhys Hoskins and Joey Votto, all producing at a memorably high level, but there was one player who out-performed all four of them.

Over his last 55 games, stretching back to July 25, Donaldson was the best player in the game. According to wRC+, widely accepted as the best metric for quantifying a player’s offensive performance, the 31-year-old posted 185 wRC+. He was 85% better than a league average player.

It may be a small sample at the end of the season, but he launched 24 home runs in these final 55 games, hitting .300 AVG. Small samples of MVP-caliber hitters coming back from injury are worth far more than small samples from players with little track records.

Next: Is Mark Trumbo losing fantasy relevancy?

Don’t consider Donaldson’s days as an elite hitter in the past. He is only 31-years-old and could be a top-10 hitter again in 2018.

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Will Blue Jays Josh Donaldson be the steal of the 2018 draft?

By Gavin Tramps | Dec 10, 2017

Third base is loaded with some of the highest profile players in the game, but the Blue Jays’ Josh Donaldson will give you elite production at a fraction of the cost.

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