Could Josh Donaldson be booed, then bounced from the Yankees?
Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson looks up as he flies out against the Seattle Mariners during the second inning of an MLB baseball game at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, June 22, 2023. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Josh Donaldson is heading down a familiar road these days. Not for him, but everyone else who’s watched what’s been unfolding around the slumping third baseman.
Last season, it was Joey Gallo. With every strikeout — and there were many — the volume of booing in the Bronx seemingly would turn up a notch. Then the jeers would follow him to the field, normally a safe haven for the two-time Gold Glove winner. Ultimately, Gallo’s situation became unsustainable, and he was dealt to the Dodgers for a Double-A pitching prospect at the deadline.
This year, the formula repeated with Aaron Hicks, who was tormented nightly by the Bronx fans as his own numbers dwindled to microscopic levels. His confidence shattered, Hicks appeared lost — both at the plate and in the outfield — so the Yankees took the extreme measure of cutting him loose on May 20 despite owing him more than $27 million through the 2025 season.
Could Donaldson be next out the door?
It’s a question worth asking now, as Donaldson is looking like a very old 37 and struggling to be a consistent offensive threat again. Thursday night was more of the same in the Yankees’ 10-2 loss to the Mariners as Donaldson went hitless (0-for-3) before being replaced by Isiah Kiner-Falefa for the top of the eighth inning due to the blowout.
That dropped Donaldson to .127 (8-for-63) with 19 strikeouts through 20 games this season, a relatively brief cameo due to missing nearly two months with a hamstring strain. And how’s this for an all-or-nothing stat: of those eight hits, six are home runs, but he’s got only eight RBIs.
In two of Thursday’s at-bats, Donaldson swung at the first pitch, popping up meekly to rightfield on a four-seam fastball and later lifting a 346-foot fly ball to center on a slider. The other trip to the plate was a fielder’s-choice chopper to third base. On top of that, the usually sure-handed Donaldson bobbled a grounder for an error, leading to two more runs scoring in the third inning. When Aaron Boone was asked later if he felt Donaldson could use a few days off — as DJ LeMahieu did with his mental breather — the manager wouldn’t go there yet.
“I don’t know,” Boone said. “We’ll see. I still feel like there’s times right now where J.D. is getting his swing off. It’s about him being more precise at the ball.”
We couldn’t ask Donaldson for his perspective because he’s been scarce lately and didn’t make himself available after Thursday night’s loss. But you have to wonder if the Yankees eventually would take the step of making him disappear entirely if this downward trend continues. With each passing day, Donaldson’s onerous contract -- he’s due roughly $20 million for the remainder of this year, if you include the $8 buyout — becomes a little more palatable to jettison.
Fortunately for Donaldson, he’s hardly an outlier in the Yankees’ underachieving lineup, so it’s not like anyone is threatening his playing time. At least not yet. Boone essentially benched LeMahieu for two straight games to give the two-time batting champ sort of a mental reset before starting him at second base for the Mariners series finale and he didn’t look fixed at all, going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.
Oswaldo Cabrera was summoned from Triple-A Scranton earlier that afternoon to take the roster spot of the freshly-injured Willie Calhoun (quad) but he was hitting .190 with four homers and a .535 OPS in the 60 games before his recent demotion. The Yankees could eventually move over Oswald Peraza, who’s raking at Scranton (.292 BA, 11 HRs, .923 OPS), but that’s a dice roll given his limited experience at third base. IKF could potentially take over at third — he both pitched and homered Thursday — but the Yankees like him in his current super-utility role.
Sizing up the competition, the Yankees’ only logical alternative is to see if Donaldson still has something left. So far, the evidence has shown he can run into a pitch on occasion, but the extended waits in-between those homers are ugly, much like Gallo before him. If LeMahieu truly winds up being fixed by his brief mental break to work on things, then maybe he’ll make Donaldson obsolete. But the Yankees haven’t reached that point yet.
“I’d like to get him really consistent at-bats before we try to assess what’s going on,” GM Brian Cashman said this week. “Obviously last year he had a sub-par offensive season. But prior to that he’s always been an above-average offensive player. This year, he got out of the gate I thought looking good and then he got hurt . . . So I’d like to get him some runway here where he gets some consistent at-bats, get on a roll and be in a better position to judge.”
Oh right. Almost forgot about last year. When Donaldson’s .682 OPS was the second-worst among the 22 qualified third basemen and his .222 average ranked third from the bottom. Incredibly, Donaldson seem to have gone downhill from there. And if this keeps up, he’ll never stop hearing about it from his irate Bronx buddies.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
