Josh Donaldson, 2015 AL MVP and 3-time All-Star, announces retirement after 13-year MLB career

By Mark Puleo, Melissa Lockard, Chris Kirschner, Brendan Kuty and Kaitlyn McGrath

Three-time All-Star and 2015 American League MVP Josh Donaldson announced his retirement Monday, concluding a 13-year career that featured stops with the Oakland A’s, Toronto Blue Jays, Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees and Milwaukee Brewers.

Donaldson made the announcement on Sean Casey’s podcast “The Mayor’s Office.” Casey and Donaldson overlapped with the Yankees in 2023, where Casey was the hitting coach.

Donaldson’s MLB career almost didn’t happen. Acquired by the A’s as the main prospect in the deal that sent Rich Harden to the Chicago Cubs in 2008, Donaldson was a top prospect for Oakland as a catcher, but by 2012, he’d all but run out of chances to stick in the big leagues. A 2010 MLB debut was uninspiring and he seemed destined to be a 4A player, despite his obvious talent.

In 2011, he began the move back to his original position in college — third base — which put him in position to get another shot with the A’s in the spring of 2012, when incumbent starter Scott Sizemore tore his ACL in a fielding drill. But Donaldson struggled out of the gate and was sent back to Triple A on June 13 with a .153 average. Veteran Brandon Inge took over at third for the A’s, who began a remarkable midseason surge up the standings in the AL West. Then in mid-August, Inge injured his shoulder in a freak play and Donaldson was given another opportunity. This time, he ran with it, becoming a key force in the A’s race to a division title that was secured on the final day of the season (the only day of the season the A’s were in first place that year).

From there, Donaldson would establish himself as one of the top third basemen in baseball in the 2010s on both sides of the ball. He hit a career-best .301 in 2013 and earned his first All-Star appearance in 2014, helping lead the A’s to three straight playoff appearances from 2012 to 2014. That offseason, Donaldson was shockingly traded to the Blue Jays, where he would take his game to another level.

The trade would prove to be a lopsided win for the Blue Jays. Donaldson experienced immediate success in Toronto and went on to have his best career season in 2015, batting .297/.371/.568 with an American League-leading 123 RBIs. He finished first in AL MVP voting, becoming the first Blue Jay to win the award since George Bell won it in 1987.

Donaldson, alongside José Bautista and Edwin Encarnación, topped an offensive juggernaut lineup and helped lead the Blue Jays to playoff relevancy after a more than two-decade-long playoff drought with back-to-back AL Championship Series appearances in 2015 and 2016.

Among Donaldson’s most memorable playoff moments with the Blue Jays was the dash he made from second base to home on a fielding error in extra innings to score the series-clinching run in Game 3 of the American League Division Series against the Texas Rangers in 2016.

But 2017 saw the start of multiple prolonged injury absences, as a calf issue hampered Donaldson at the beginning of the year. While he rebounded to finish with 22 home runs and a .302 average in 113 games, calf issues and arm injuries derailed his 2018 season, limiting him to 36 games before Toronto traded him to Cleveland in August, where he played just 16 more games.

In the offseason, Donaldson joined Atlanta and experienced a career resurgence in 2019, staying healthy for 155 appearances and hitting 37 home runs with 94 RBIs as he was named National League Comeback Player of the Year. He parlayed that performance into a four-year, $92 million deal with the Twins in 2020.

After hitting 32 home runs and batting .243 in 163 total games with Minnesota, he was traded along with Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Ben Rortvedt to the Yankees in exchange for Gary Sanchez and Gio Urschela in 2022. The deal is considered one of general manager Brian Cashman’s worst moves in recent Yankees history.

The Yankees picked up the $50 million Donaldson was owed from Minnesota, and he only played 165 games for New York. He hit .207/.293/.385 with just 25 home runs for the Yankees. In the 2022 postseason, Donaldson went 5-for-29 with 16 strikeouts. As his production continued to crater and the team’s playoff hopes began to vanish in 2023, the team designated him for assignment in late August.

The one bright spot for Donaldson’s Yankees tenure was his glove. He was an incredible defender and should have at least been a finalist for the Gold Glove Award in 2022. But the Yankees traded for him because they envisioned him being a middle-of-the-order presence and not just a glove-only third baseman.

In the end, his Yankees tenure may notoriously be remembered for calling then-Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson “Jackie,” a reference to Jackie Robinson. The comment led to a bench-clearing incident in May 2022, and Donaldson was issued a one-game suspension for the remark that then-White Sox manager Tony La Russa deemed “racist.”

Yankees fans will also remember a strange period in Donaldson’s tenure. Last July, he was two weeks removed from suffering a calf tear and getting placed on the 60-day injured list when he suddenly appeared on the field before a game against the Tampa Bay Rays at home and took batting practice and ground balls while appearing healthy. He said at the time that the Yankees never consulted with him about going on the 60-day and instead just placed him on the list.

Donaldson expressed regret for not playing better in the Bronx in his interview with Casey. He said, “The last two years were tough for me.”

“It’s tough to play in New York when you’re not winning,” Donaldson said. “It’s especially tough when you’re not playing well. But as a player you know what you’re getting into. I think it’s a double-edged sword at the end of the day. You can’t look at it too hard, but you know it’s there. For me, personally, I just wish I could have played better while my time was there. I feel like I was capable of doing it. I just didn’t do it.”

After the Yankees cut Donaldson, he hooked on with the Milwaukee Brewers, and the results weren’t much better — a .169 batting average with three homers in 17 games. He said he went into the offseason expecting to play in 2024, and that he had a few offers from teams, but that it would have taken a “perfect” fit for him to continue his career. It didn’t materialize.

“The last two years were tough for me for the fact that I didn’t go out there and play well, or up to my standard,” he said. “It wasn’t for the lack of not trying. I was in there working.”

Donaldson closes his career with 279 home runs, 816 RBIs and a career slashline of .261/.358/.489.

Required reading

(Photo: Sarah Stier / Getty Images)