Atlanta Braves: Will the real Josh Donaldson please stand up?

Atlanta Braves third baseman Josh Donaldson is starting to heat up, and fans hope this is the Donaldson that we paid big money for in the offseason.

It’s been a shaky start to the 2019 season for Josh Donaldson with the Atlanta Braves. While he’s performed fairly well, he’s never going to live up to the expectations of the fans.

Part of that is because of the big chunk of money the Atlanta Braves gave him in the offseason.

Instead of letting Johan Camargo start the season at third until Austin Riley was ready, the Braves spent $23 million on one player — Donaldson.

Fans obviously have an issue with that because it — possibly — prevented the team from making improvements in the bullpen.

But let’s put all that aside for the moment and focus on exactly what Donaldson brings to this team.

An attitude

We saw this earlier in the week when Donaldson took exception to a pitch from Joe Musgrove that clipped his jersey.

I’ll be honest and tell you this was a joke, but I blame Donaldson the most. The ball hardly grazed his jersey and clearly wasn’t intentional, but for whatever reason Donaldson decided to get in a staring contest with the pitcher.

He’s now appealing a one-game suspension for this incident.

But that’s the kind of fiery attitude you get with Donaldson. Now whether or not that’s a good thing for the clubhouse — I’m not sure.

It’s great when he’s playing well and others are feeding off that energy like what happened over the weekend against the Phillies.

I think the younger players like Ronald Acuna Jr. probably love the emotion and excitement that Donaldson plays with. And I’ve even seen Freddie Freeman get fired up with Donaldson.

But on the other hand, when Donaldson is slumping and frustrated, it leads to unwarranted situations like what happened with Musgrove, which I don’t think is good for the team.

Stellar defense 

This is where I don’t really get or understand defensive metrics. FanGraphs shows that Josh Donaldson has a DRS (defensive runs saved) of 4, which would be tied for third most among NL third baseman.

But yet their defensive rating for him is negative 0.6.

When you look at the standard metrics for defense, I was surprised to see that Josh Donaldson ranks last in fielding percentage amongst qualified third baseman in the NL (10-out-of-10).

But he’s also had a lot more chances with the second most putouts among that group.

However, my eyes tell me a much different story. Donaldson has played exceptionally well at third base this season and continues to make run-saving plays.

All-or-nothing hitter

Josh Donaldson is a legit three true outcomes player. He’s hit 12 home runs, walked 37 times, and struck out 77 times in 242 at-bats. Fifty-two percent of his at-bats ends with one of those outcomes.

What has frustrated fans the most this year is that his success has come in spurts and then he disappears for a couple of weeks.

On April 11 he was hitting .186, but quickly bumped that up to .264 after picking up 6 hits and a couple of home runs over a three-game stretch.

His average dropped back down to .243 before that big series in Cleveland that boosted it to .270.

It hovered around. 260 until a three-hit game to start May pushed it back up to .275.

More from Tomahawk Take

• Atlanta Braves: Six Braves prospects that could debut in 2023
• Braves News: Braves sign Sean Murphy to six year, $73 million deal
• Braves News: Braves re-sign Stephens, Will Atlanta extend Max Fried?, more
• Notable Atlanta Braves Reunions Since 2003: Pitcher Edition
• Braves News: Braves re-sign Jackson Stephens

But then he hung around the .250s until back-to-back two-hit games in the middle of May pushed it back to .265. That’s about where he stayed for the rest of May.

And then we saw his average drop all the way down to .235 before his big weekend against the Phillies brought it up to .252.

He’s been great in mini pockets, but not consistently enough.

But that’s why he’s a great fit for the clean-up spot. With the guys ahead of him getting on base, the Atlanta Braves could put up a crooked number at any moment when Donaldson comes to the plate.

Those moments just haven’t been happening on a consistent basis, but rather in small spurts.

Donaldson is never going to live up to the $23 million he’s making this year, so Atlanta Braves fans need to try and put that out of their thinking.

This third baseman has his value on this team, and I think we have a better understanding now of who Josh Donaldson really is going to be. And I believe he will play a positive role for the Atlanta Braves in 2019.