Josh Donaldson will make $4.3 million in 2015
Jon Heyman of CBS Sports informed us thatJosh Donaldson and the Toronto Blue Jays were in a salary arbitration hearing on Thursday and today we found out that the arbitrator sided with the Jays.
#BlueJays Josh Donaldson loses arbitration case and will earn $4.3M. He was 2nd in the AL in WAR in 2014, trailing only Mike Trout.
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) February 13, 2015Last month, the Blue Jays filed their offer of $4.3 million while Donaldson requested $5.75 million, a fairly significant difference at $1.45 million. Matt Swartz and MLB Trade Rumors' model predicted that the third baseman would get $4.5 million for 2015, so the Jays came in slightly under that.
With this arbitration decision, Donaldson became the first Blue Jays position player to have lost in arbitration in franchise history.
Update:
Later, Donaldson tweeted this:
Had a great experience with @MLB_PLAYERS and my agency. Take away a lot of positive lessons, and most importantly time to grind on the field
— Josh Donaldson (@BringerOfRain20) February 13, 2015It is nice to see that he doesn't seem upset at the loss, though I wouldn't be upset about making $4.3 million.
Alison Gordon Dies at 72
Pioneering Toronto Star Blue Jays beat writer Alison Gordon passed away Thursday morning at the age of 72 after undergoing lung surgery earlier in the week, reports Brendan Kennedy.
Her five-year tenure on the beat, starting in the disastrous 1979 season, was before my time, but I did recall reading a few of her columns while doing research in the Star's digital archives. Although her given name was clearly feminine, I never clued in on how monumentous it was for a woman to be covering a sports team's beat back then. As Kennedy noted in his article, there was still a league-wide clubhouse ban on women reporters going into the 1978 season. I was a bit embarrassed to have not known that she was actually baseball's first woman beat reporter as well as the first woman to be allowed into the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Israel Fehr noted in his post on Yahoo! Sports that Gordon's BBWAA membership card read "Mr. Alison Gordon."
Echoing what Andrew Stoeten wrote on the topic, in addition to my embarrassment, I am a bit saddened that Gordon's trailblazing story had not been more widely told.
Other Blue Jays News
The beautiful soft drink, Chris Colabello, was successfully outrighted off the 40-man roster, reports Gregor Chisholm. He was designated for assignment when the Jays traded for Jayson Aquino. Colabello will retain the rights to attend big league camp when spring training starts in two weeks. (TWO WEEKS!) Andy Dirks will not be joining him, as Dirks will rehab his back injury in minor league camp.
Jose Bautista told MLB Network's Hot Stove that he would like to finish his career in Toronto, as a Blue Jay. Fine by me! (Although I'd assume most players under contract would say something similar.)
Dan Szymborski and FanGraphs released the ZiPS projections for the 2015 Blue Jays on Thursday, and spoke to our pals at Blue Jays Plus about them.