Last fall, an All-Star third baseman was traded and proceeded to have an MVP season for his new team.
Now, the Chicago White Sox are hoping history repeats itself.
On Wednesday, the Sox acquired Todd Frazier from the Cincinnati Reds in a three-team swap that also involved the Los Angeles Dodgers, according to MLB.com’s Scott Merkin. The deal was complicated, as three-team trades always are, but the top takeaway is that Chicago added a power bat and one of the best third-sackers in the game.
Will it be Donaldson 2.0 on the South Side?
There are differences between Frazier and Donaldson, and we’ll get into that in a moment. First, though, let’s stack up the similarities.
In 2014, the season before the Oakland A’s sent him to the Toronto Blue Jays, a 28-year-old Donaldson posted a .255/.342/.456 slash line with 29 home runs and 98 RBI.
In 2015, a 29-year-old Frazier posted a .255/.309/.498 slash line with 35 home runs and 89 RBI.
Donaldson was the 48th pick in the 2007 draft; Frazier was the 34th pick that same year.
So you see where the comparison is tempting and, really, inevitable. Does that mean Frazier will break out in Chicago the way Donaldson did in Toronto?
He is moving to U.S. Cellular Field, the eighth-most home run friendly yard in baseball, according to ESPN’s Park Factors statistic. Of course, he’s leaving Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, which checks in at No. 7.
Steamer projects a .252/.316/.452 slash line with 28 home runs, 85 RBI and 3.2 fWAR. That wouldn’t approach the insane line Donaldson put up en route to the AL MVP Award: .297/.371/.568, 41 HR, 123 RBI, 8.7 fWAR.
There’s also some disparity on the defensive side. Donaldson boasts 46 career defensive runs saved (DRS) and a 39.9 ultimate zone rating (UZR) at third base. Frazier, meanwhile, has compiled 22 DRS and a 25.1 UZR.
Odds are Frazier won’t be a 2015 Donaldson facsimile for the White Sox. But he can still be exceedingly valuable for a team that scored the fewest runs in the Junior Circuit and finished 19 games out in the American League Central.
The White Sox have strengths, including a rotation topped by ace lefty Chris Sale. And Frazier will join a lineup that features dangerous Cuban slugger Jose Abreu.
But third base was a black hole for the Sox in 2015, as Chicago got an anemic .220/.272/.339 line at the position, “good” for minus-1.3 fWAR. Frazier should reverse that in a big way. And he’ll give them a fighting chance in a division that’s mostly up for grabs, as an MLB executive recently told Bleacher Report’s Danny Knobler:
FanGraphs’ Jeff Sullivan broke down the White Sox’s position in light of the Frazier addition:
The Sox still have their problems with depth, and that’s why they won’t be a favorite, barring more additions. They’re thin in the outfield and they don’t have a shortstop and the back of the rotation could be weak. But the collection isn’t bad, and it shouldn’t be too tough to find a quality fourth outfielder. The Sox had to go in one direction. They chose to go toward winning.
Donaldson, likewise, came to a Toronto team that was clawing for position in a wide-open AL East. He helped get them to the top of the division heap and then all the way to the American League Championship Series.
That’s the trick that would make Frazier this winter’s Donaldson. He doesn’t have to replicate those MVP stats so long as he gets Chicago to the postseason for the first time since 2008. It’s not the 22-year drought the Jays snapped last season, but it surely feels like long enough for Sox fans.
“I’m pretty excited; I’ve got to be truthful with you,” Frazier said after the trade, per Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times. “I know it’s the American League; I know it’s going to be a little different. It might take a little time to get acclimated, but I just saw the [projected White Sox] lineup on TV; it kind of put a smile on my face to see the guys we’ve got.”
One of those guys is infielder Brett Lawrie, whom the White Sox acquired in a swap with the Oakland A’s. Last winter, Lawrie was one of the pieces that went from Toronto to Oakland in the, wait for it, Josh Donaldson trade.
Maybe it means something, maybe it means nothing. But these Frazier/Donaldson parallels just keep popping up.
OK, here’s one more: In the 2015 Home Run Derby, Donaldson and Frazier faced off in the second round. The event, part of All-Star weekend, was held in Cincinnati. So you can guess who the crowd was pulling for.
“After 30-40 seconds into it, I could start to hear people boo me,” Donaldson said at the time, per MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon. “Then mid-swing, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going up against Frazier.’ Good for them. He put on an awesome performance tonight.”
Frazier knocked out Donaldson. Then he won the Derby and hoisted the hardware. The White Sox are hoping that was a metaphor and a microcosm of things to come.
They’re hoping, in other words, that history repeats itself.
All statistics current as of Dec. 16 and courtesy of FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.
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