The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Braves want Donaldson back, but at what price?
Challenge is calculating worth over number of years.
The useful site MLB Trade Rumors lists Josh Donaldson as the fifth-best free agent available. (Behind Gerrit Cole, Anthony Rendon, Stephen Strasburg and Zack Wheeler.) Spoiler alert: It also projects he’ll sign with the Rangers for $75 million over three seasons.
That’s a lot for any team to spend on a player who’ll turn 34 in December. It’s more than the Braves would want to pay. (They bought eight years of Ronald Acuna’s services for $100 million, though we note that Acuna was light years from free agency and had no leverage apart from being the game’s best young player.) But is Donaldson among those rare cases where need impels a frugal club to say, “Heck with it. He’s worth it. Here’s $75 mil.”?
The argument against paying that much is Donaldson probably won’t be as good in Year 2 of this contract (to say nothing of Year 3) as in the season just completed. Not saying that the “Bringer of Rain” will take his last big deal and be content to run out the clock. The Braves want him back in large part because they know he’s not that kind of guy. He’s a hard nose. He’s something of an inspiration. Statcast doesn’t measure such ephemeral qualities, and I’m always leery of those good-in-the-clubhouse guys, but Donaldson has a history of being good on the field, too.
And it’s not ancient history. He just led a team that won 97 games — a team with Acuna, Freddie Freeman, Ozzie Albies and Mike Soroka — in Baseball-Reference WAR. This wasn’t lightning caught in a bottle, either. For Donaldson, it
ATHENS — Georgia coach Kirby Smart acts as though he’s not all that impressed with his defense’s feat of having played eight games this season without allowing a rushing touchdown. Perhaps he should be. According to people into such things, it’s something Georgia has never done. Well, at least since the 1940s. As one might imagine, football records get a little shaky before that.
Patrick Garbin, a UGA football historian from Athens who is working on his ninth book about the Bulldogs, gets into such statistical anoma- lies. So, he put his full energy into researching this particular topic this week until, well, he finally had to quit. What did he find?
For starters, Garbin verified that not only is Georgia the only FBS team to not allow a rushing touchdown to this point in the season, it is the only team in all of college football not to have allowed an opposing player to reach the end zone via the rush. That’s all, as in FBS, FCS, Division II and Division III.
“I started to go into the NAIA and I just had to tell myself to stop,” Garbin said with a laugh. “You can’t even tell what conference most of the teams are in.”
As for the Bulldogs, it’s unquestionable that this is the latest they’ve gone into a season without giving up a score on the ground. Garbin said the fewest he found was the Georgia team that allowed only four rushing TDs in 1968. He said the 1981 and 1959 teams gave up only five rushing scores. It should be noted that all three of those squads ended up as SEC champions.
None of which is to say this year’s Georgia team will end up conference champions because of rushing defense. But it certainly doesn’t hurt.
Entering Saturday’s game against Missouri — a pretty good rushing team, by the way — the Bulldogs lead the SEC in rushing defense (77.6 ypg), scoring defense (11.4 ppg) and total defense (268.1 ypg).
Smart remains skeptical about all those sparkly num- bers, especially the zero next to rushing touchdowns.
“It’s a great feat to have, but I would trade some ‘goalline rushes’ for some ‘not big plays,’ you know what I mean?” Smart said Tuesday night. “I’d much rather not give up long passing plays. But the guys are proud of it, and they try to own it.”
They are proud, especially the defensive linemen. “We try to carry it with us, but coach Smart always brings it down,” junior defensive end Malik Herring said. “In practice he’s like, ‘Oh, the scout team just scored again.’ But, yeah, it’s pretty cool.”
To be sure, stopping the run — period — is an important statistic when it comes to establishing a dominant defense. And while some might quibble with the competition the Bulldogs have faced so far and each team’s inherent running ability, it’s always helpful to stuff the run.
Florida, a top 10 team, managed only 21 yards on 19 carries last week. Kentucky had the most against Georgia so far this year with 160.
Missouri comes to Sanford Stadium sixth in the SEC in rushing offense at 182.4 yards per game and has scored 12 times via their ground attack. One hundred eighty-two happens to be a much-discussed number at Georgia’s football complex this week.
You see, Missouri rushed for 182 yards and three touchdowns in a 43-29 loss to Georgia last year in Columbia.