Kuzul

What do Blue Jays and Vikings have in common? Well, if you’re referring to the fowl and the historical people, nothing.

But now that AL MVP Josh Donaldson is getting grimy and suiting up in armor for the History Channel’s upcoming fourth season of Vikings, there is a connection!

According to the press release, this is what fans of both the show and the third baseman can expect:

Donaldson will play the role of “Hoskuld,” a Viking warrior of great skill, in an episode that will air later this year as part of the fourth season. Two-time All-Star Donaldson will film in Ireland this week. Donaldson is a massive fan of “Vikings” and recently tweeted a photo unveiling a striking, new Viking hairstyle inspired by the character “Ragnar.”

Given that Donaldson broadcasted that braided coif in early December, the news should come with little surprise. Still, the level of commitment required to at least semi-permanently modify the look of his locks bodes well for his forthcoming performance. 

And if that wasn’t enough to build the anticipation, peep the Season 4 trailer:

Donaldson seems nowhere to be found—which makes sense given that he has yet to begin shooting—but where there is an overcast sky and thunderclaps, there will almost certainly be downpour.

The Bringer of Rain is on the horizon.

[For the Win, h/t CBSSports.com]

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Josh Donaldson is winning.

After taking the Toronto Blue Jays to the American League Championship Series and winning the AL MVP, the 29-year-old will grace the cover of MLB 16: The Show.

As Greg Warren of theScore noted, this is “the first time a Toronto Blue Jays player has landed on the cover in the United States, although Jose Bautista, Russell Martin, and Brett Lawrie have graced the Canadian cover in the past.”

Sports Gamers Online also put out a trailer for the game, which will be released March 29 on the PS4:

[h/t theScore]

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Josh Donaldson had to work just to get to the big leagues. Alex Anthopoulos really had to work to get Josh Donaldson to Toronto.

If nothing else, the story of the American League‘s 2015 Most Valuable Player is the story of persistence.

You can make it, even if it takes you five years to leave the minor leagues behind. You can trade for a real difference-maker, even if he’s “unavailable.”

“Listen, I’m not trading Josh Donaldson, so stop asking me,” then-Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane supposedly told Anthopoulos 12 months ago, according to Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun.

Anthopoulos didn’t stop asking, the trade got made, and now Donaldson is the MVP.

It’s great news for Donaldson, great news for Anthopoulos, not-so-great news for Beane and terrible news for every other general manager who has answered a question by saying, “I’d love to get Player X, but they’re not trading him.”

You can trade for an MVP. Anthopoulos did it.

We may find out in the years to come that Beane and the A’s got good value back in the four-for-one deal that included third baseman Brett Lawrie and three younger players. For now, though, Anthopoulos was the one who found value, because players like Donaldson just don’t get traded very often.

It does happen. Former Detroit Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski was able to trade for Miguel Cabrera, who has won two MVPs in the Motor City. Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels was able to trade for Josh Hamilton, who won an MVP with his club.

But before Donaldson’s overwhelming win over Mike Trout in the voting was announced Thursday night, the last player to win an MVP in the year immediately after getting traded was Willie Hernandez, 31 years ago with the Detroit Tigers.

“You get that guy and we’ll win the World Series,” Sparky Anderson told Tigers general manager Bill Lajoie as the two watched Hernandez pitch for the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1983 World Series.

The following spring, Lajoie traded for Hernandez. Months later, the Tigers won the World Series, and Hernandez won the MVP.

Donaldson’s Blue Jays didn’t win the World Series, but they did end the franchise’s 21-year postseason drought.

It wasn’t all because of him. Four other Blue Jays showed up on at least one MVP ballot. But it was Donaldson, who received 23 of the 30 first-place votes, who made the biggest difference.

Donaldson wasn’t always the guy who could do that. He was a first-round draft pick in 2007, but the Chicago Cubs were willing to let him go only a year later, as part of a trade that brought them Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin. He was still in the minor leagues when he was 26, but the A’s called him up in time to meet Jonny Gomes.

Donaldson cited Gomes Thursday in an interview on the MLB Network just after the award was announced.

“He would tell me, ‘Somebody’s got to step up and help us win a game,'” Donaldson said. “I learned that I could be a guy that was a difference-maker.”

Players can be difference-makers. General managers can, too.

We’re talking about Anthopoulos here because Donaldson is the MVP, but one of the other AL finalists was Lorenzo Cain, whom Dayton Moore acquired for the Kansas City Royals in a December 2010 trade with the Milwaukee Brewers for Zack Greinke. And the National League‘s Cy Young award winner was Jake Arrieta, whom Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer acquired for the Cubs in a 2013 trade with the Baltimore Orioles for Scott Feldman.

It’s not often a general manager gets the instant impact that Anthopoulos got from Donaldson. As Jayson Stark of ESPN.com tweeted Thursday afternoon:

Back then, maybe it didn’t seem so unusual. Frank Robinson had been traded from the Cincinnati Reds just before winning the 1966 MVP with the Baltimore Orioles. Roger Maris had been traded from the Kansas City Athletics just before winning the 1960 MVP with the New York Yankees.

This is a different era, a Moneyball era, an era where we’re supposed to know so much more about value—especially the Athletics team that moved to Oakland.

“I was surprised,” Donaldson said on a conference call Thursday, when asked about his first reaction to last year’s trade.

He said it didn’t take long before he realized it could work out well for him, moving to the AL East and into a powerful lineup.

“We knew it was going to be a better situation for my career,” he said.

It was better, for him and for the Blue Jays, and for anyone who wants to believe a big trade can make a big difference.

You can trade for a guy like Josh Donaldson. You can trade for an MVP.

Alex Anthopoulos did it.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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The Baseball Writers’ Association of America pared down the list of American League MVP candidates to Lorenzo Cain, Josh Donaldson and Mike Trout, and Donaldson secured the coveted hardware Thursday night to close out a compelling race. 

Major League Baseball’s official Twitter account relayed confirmation of the BBWAA’s selection, while Bleacher Report congratulated the 29-year-old on his honor. 

A complete look at the 2015 AL MVP voting can be viewed below, courtesy of BBWAA.com: 

According to MLB Communications on Twitter, Donaldson joined George Bell as the only Blue Jays players to win MVP. MLB Communications added that Trout, Barry Bonds, Yogi Berra and Stan Musial are the only players to finish in the top two of MVP voting four years in a row. 

The Blue Jays won the AL East in 2015, and Donaldson was a major reason why. Not only was his production gaudy, but it also came at the perfect time, as Toronto surged through the season’s second half en route to the franchise’s first division title since 1993. 

Overall, Donaldson clubbed a career-high 41 home runs and drove in an MLB-best 123 RBI. Toronto’s third baseman also batted a rock-solid .297 while totaling a .568 slugging percentage, which was the best mark of his career by nearly 70 points. 

“He does everything,” Chicago White Sox manager Robin Ventura said, per the Associated Press (via USA Today). “He hits for power, he gets on base, he plays defense. There’s just a lot of things to like about him as a player. And knowing that Toronto hasn’t been in there the last few years, he goes over in his first year and they just become a different-looking team.”

Following the All-Star break, Donaldson was simply brilliant. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Donaldson posted a .302 batting average, .615 slugging percentage and 1.011 OPS over the season’s second half. The MVP was particularly absurd in August, when he batted .324 while the Blue Jays posted a 21-6 record over a crucial late-season stretch. 

Considering Donaldson smashed his previous career-bests from power and run-production standpoints, it’s no wonder he was able to throttle to the head of the MVP pack in conjunction with the Blue Jays’ run up the standings. 

And therein lies one of the components that separated Donaldson from Trout. Although Trout posted arguably the gaudiest overall stat line in baseball, Donaldson put up his numbers for a team that was in the title conversation through September and into October. 

An American League Championship Series loss to the Kansas City Royals hurt, but by that point, Donaldson’s true worth was established and reinforced several times over.

Keeping pace with Trout in the coming years will be difficult for the soon-to-be 30-year-old, but Donaldson’s 2015 campaign was a revelation for a Toronto team on the rise. 

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There actually is a fish called a Donaldson Trout. According to a post on the website Trout Fishing Help, it’s sometimes called “Super Trout.”

So there you have it. A (Josh) Donaldson is a super (Mike) Trout!

I’m guessing that won’t end the argument over who the American League‘s Most Valuable Player should be. I’m guessing this column won’t end it.

The arguments will go on, and that’s too bad, not because debates are bad (they’re actually one of the best things about following sports) but because these MVP debates tend to get out of hand. It’s too bad because here I am again arguing against maybe the best player in baseball.

Mike Trout is a great player. Mike Trout would be a deserving MVP. But just as Trout finished second to Miguel Cabrera in his first two full big league seasons, Trout should finish second to Josh Donaldson when the 2015 AL MVP is announced Thursday evening.

Donaldson should win because he was the dominant player in the American League this year. He should win because when you tell the story of 2015 in the AL, you start with him. He should win because the MVP isn’t about choosing the most talented player or the player who led in any one statistical category.

It’s subjective, not objective. Context matters. Storylines matter.

The stats matter, too, but in this case the stats don’t give you a clear winner.

This isn’t Trout-Cabrera, although once again Trout holds the lead in the various versions of WAR, while Donaldson does better with traditional numbers like RBI. This time, though, the WAR differences aren’t overwhelming, and the RBI difference is largely and obviously a result of opportunity (because Trout matched or bettered Donaldson’s numbers with runners in scoring position).

The RBI difference still shouldn’t be overlooked, because the MVP is about what happened rather than what could have or should have happened. Trout could have driven in all those runs given the chance, but the fact is he didn’t.

Trout might have matched Donaldson if he had the supporting cast with the Los Angeles Angels that Donaldson had with the Toronto Blue Jays. But he didn’t.

Instead, what happened was Donaldson led the Blue Jays through a dream season that ended with a first-place finish and the second-best record in the league. Trout lifted the Angels into contention but wasn’t able to pull them into the postseason.

They faded in August (10-19), and their September recovery left them just short of the postseason. Trout faded in August (.218, one home run), and his September recovery left him just short of the MVP.

You could argue that pattern shows just how valuable Trout was to the Angels because when he slumped, they slumped. But the story of the season was that they fell short, and so did he.

The story of the season has plenty of room for Donaldson’s biggest hits, for the three walk-off home runs that always seemed to come at big points in the season. The story of the season has room for Donaldson and Russell Martin coming to Toronto and helping change a clubhouse culture. And while the story of 2015 will also include a postseason in which Donaldson didn’t dominate and the Blue Jays didn’t win, the MVP deals only with the regular season.

The MVP isn’t about which player you’d rather have if you were starting a team (everyone’s taking the 24-year-old Trout over the 29-year-old Donaldson). It isn’t about who’s going to be better next year (at this point, Trout is always the safest bet).

It’s simply about 2015 and who dominated the American League.

If you want to say it was Trout, that’s fine. He’s not a bad choice. He’s just not the best choice.

The MVP is Josh Donaldson, and the final vote shouldn’t even be that close.

Case closed?

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

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The MLB MVP races don’t have the luster of recent memory, given only a handful of candidates were a part of a pennant race despite their teams being rich with high expectations fueled by remarkable talent.

It’s far less enticing than the Cy Young Award conversation where in the National League, there are three worthy winners and in the American League, there is a pair of southpaws that led their teams to snap lengthy playoff droughts. 

Perhaps a slight stride in the 2015 MVP hunt is that there appears to be more variety among vying candidates. Last year, Mike Trout ran away as the unanimous AL winner and Clayton Kershaw got the NL nod with a dominating 21-3 record while claiming his fourth-straight ERA title.

The MVP awards—along with the Cy Young, Rookie and Manager of the Year honors—are administered by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. 

The BBWAA selects two members recommended by the local chapter chairman from each MLB city for each award, tallying 30 total votes. There is no crossover—meaning AL writers vote only for that league award, and same for the NL—and in smaller markets, some members may vote for multiple awards, per the BBWAA.

With the MVP announcement slated for Nov. 19, here is a look at the candidates and predictions.

American League

Trout turned in another phenomenal year, but the reigning MVP may be hindered by his team’s overall struggles and a breakout season from Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson.

Donaldson scored 13.6 percent of Toronto’s MLB-best 891 runs this season, led the AL with 123 RBI and 352 total bases, and tied with Trout for third with 41 homers. He was undoubtedly the best bat in a Blue Jays lineup filled with power and consistency.

Donaldson was an exceptional hitter and defender in four seasons with the Oakland A’s—he was an All-Star in 2014—before being traded last offseason. But his ascension to MVP favorite came at a rapid rate and as somewhat of a surprise given the A’s were willing to let him go in part of an overall rebuild. 

The third baseman could become the first player to win MVP following an offseason trade since the Detroit Tigers’ Willie Hernandez in 1984, according to JP Morosi of FOX Sports.

Donaldson’s peers voted him the overwhelming winner in the Sporting News MLB Player of the Year honors, determined from 387 player votes—of which 150 were for Donaldson. Trout finished sixth with 12 votes.

His Los Angeles Angels were 14-1 odds to win the World Series this spring, per Odds Shark, sixth among the majors after winning 98 games the year prior. They would’ve assuredly been worse without the versatile outfielder, as only two teammates had a FanGraphs WAR of 2.0, the mark of an average position player. Trout’s 9.0 topped the AL with Donaldson second at 8.7.

Handcuffing the five-tool Trout for his team’s struggles might not be fair—and it defies BBWAA protocol—but that’s not why Trout shouldn’t win. It’s because Donaldson was simply the better player, who also happened to play on a better team.

Donaldson winning MVP would leave Trout the runner-up for the third time in his fourth full MLB season, but he’s only 24, is the face of baseball and will assuredly contend for the honor in many years to come.

Prediction: Josh Donaldson

National League

The NL MVP race isn’t nearly as close or varied, with the Washington Nationals’ Bryce Harper the clear favorite despite his team failing to reach the postseason as unanimous preseason World Series favorites, per Odds Shark.

Harper blasted a league-high 42 homers and was the batting title bridesmaid with a .330 average. The former first overall draft pick finally lived up to his prodigy pedigree after three seasons of above-average, but not necessarily remarkable, performances forecasted when he entered the league, as Eddie Matz of  indicated:

Harper hasn’t had a bad season since he came to the majors, but this is the first year many feel he has really lived up to his superstar potential. Part of that is patience, he says, sure. But a bigger part is that, for the first time, he has been able to play an entire season.

Harper fulfilled his preseason goal of playing at least 150 games—he reached a career-high 153—in large part to baserunning and defensive discipline. And his presence benefited the Nationals greatly, as he led the majors with a 9.5 WAR, per FanGraphs.

His competition for the award doesn’t seem as stiff as others’ in years past, either. 

There is a trio of starting pitchers—Jake Arrieta, Zack Greinke and Kershaw—each worthy of the Cy Young Award, but they probably won’t challenge Harper given the writers awarded Kershaw in a once-in-a-generation selection a year ago when he became the first NL MVP pitcher since Bob Gibson in 1968.

Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo and Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado each had exceptional seasons, but none quite reached Harper’s echelon. Rizzo was the only one among that trio to reach the postseason.

Should writers select Harper, he would be the first NL MVP on a non-playoff team since Albert Pujols won in 2008 with the St. Louis Cardinals. In total, six have won the award since MLB expanded its playoffs in 1994 to incorporate the League Division Series, according to Dayn Perry of CBS Sports. 

And per BBWAA protocol, the performances of Harper’s teammates shouldn’t be a factor in determining the award. 

Prediction: Bryce Harper

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Josh Donaldson has been the biggest offensive catalyst for the Toronto Blue Jays all season long, and the third baseman is back in the lineup for Game 2 after being removed from Game 1 with a head injury.  

As the Blue Jays rocketed up the AL East standings following a trade deadline that saw the team acquire Troy Tulowitzki and David Price, Donaldson consistently set the tone for Toronto’s offense.  

“He’s a guy that keeps pushing, pushing, never takes an inning off,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said, per MLB.com’s Gregor Chisholm. “We needed some of that, but the name of the game is production on the field, and he is near the top of most offensive categories, and he has played some great defense for us. I don’t know where we would be without him.”

En route to cementing his place as an AL MVP candidate, Donaldson batted .297 while smashing 41 home runs and driving in an AL-best 123 runs this season.

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They, in all their they-y wisdom, say that great pitching always beats great hitting. It’s a notion that at least sounds logical, so it must be true.

We can say one thing, though: With Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion leading the charge, the Toronto Blue Jays‘ offense is pretty well-equipped to disprove that notion this October.

In case you’ve just returned to earth following an extended stay on Mars (welcome back, Mark Watney!), you should know that the AL East champions’ offense really is scary. Like, scary enough to lead all of Major League Baseball in runs, home runs and OPS. As Tom Verducci put it in Sports Illustrated, Toronto’s offense is “a throwback offense to the days when there was no PED testing in baseball.”

Yeah, that scary. And though the Blue Jays enjoyed significant contributions from up and down their lineup, the fearsome threesome of Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion did the heavy lifting. Behold:

Even without context, these are numbers that are liable to make you say “Yowza” out loud. But a bit of context is liable to make you put it in all caps and shout it.

For example, Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion all finished in the top 10 in MLB in OPS+, which adjusts OPS to league average. They’re also the first trio of teammates to finish with OPS+’s of at least 149 since Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen on the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals.

But meh. Why paint Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion as the best offensive trio in recent memory when they can be painted as maybe the best offensive trio ever? 

That’s what Joe Posnanski did at NBC Sports, noting that the Donaldson-Bautista-Encarnacion trio is the first in baseball history to each top 35 homers and 100 RBI with an OBP of at least .370 and an OPS+ of at least 140.

As Blue Jays right-hander Marco Estrada told the Associated Pres (via FoxSports.com): “I’m extremely happy that I don’t have to face them because I get to watch them hit every day and it’s a scary lineup.”

Such is the challenge facing the Blue Jays’ list of opponents this postseason, which begins with the Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series on Thursday. All they have to do is go up against the league’s most explosive offense, led by an all-time great offensive trio, and find a way to put up zeroes.

One wants to say, “No pressure, man.” But one can’t. All of the pressure, man.

But can it be done? 

Honestly, the best anyone can say is maybe.

When one is dealing with a threat as enormous as the heart of the Blue Jays offense, it behooves one to search for a specific weakness. The Death Star had its two-meter exhaust port. Surely the Donaldson-Bautista-Encarnacion has one of its own.

It’s not immediately apparent, though.

One thing Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion all have in common is that they swing from the right side of the plate, but they’re not vulnerable to the platoon advantage. All three posted OPS’s of over .900 against right-handed pitching in 2015, making them three of the top 10 right-on-right hitters in MLB. 

So, scratch that. And no, they didn’t have reverse splits either. Donaldson crushed left-handers the most with a 1.024 OPS, but neither Bautista nor Encarnacion did worse than .830. Scratch that, too.

Moving on, one thing that tends to be plentiful in October is power pitching. But before one can even ponder the notion that perhaps Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion can simply be blown away, one notices that all three finished 2015 with strikeout percentages under the MLB average of 20.4.

On that note, Baseball-Reference.com says all three handled “power” pitchers better than the average major leaguer (.656 OPS). Same goes for “finesse” pitchers, as all three annihilated the average OPS (.760) against them.

Ah, but with them being power-oriented hitters and everything, perhaps they can be easily silenced by pitchers who specialize in ground balls!

…Nope. Not that either. The average MLB hitter had a .714 OPS against ground-ball pitchers. Neither Donaldson nor Bautista nor Encarnacion did worse than a .950 OPS against said pitchers.

These are easy go-to areas for potential weaknesses, and Toronto’s trio has them all covered. It’s almost as if they’re really good hitters! Whaddya know.

However…

Yeah, you knew it was coming. Nobody’s perfect. Least of all hitters, as even the best of them are vanquished in the majority of their plate appearances. Lo and behold, not even Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion are perfect.

They’re definitely dangerous, and what makes them dangerous is their power. Especially, as one can tell from looking at their zone profiles at Brooks Baseball, against pitches on the inner two-thirds of the strike zone.

That’s where Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion preferred to swing their bats in 2015, and Baseball Savant can crunch the numbers and tell us they did considerable damage in those regions:

• Donaldson: .375 AVG, .755 SLUG
• Bautista: .300 AVG, .771 SLUG
• Encarnacion: .317 AVG, .714 SLUG

Simply from looking at this, we can make a Sherlockian deduction that it’s a good idea for opposing pitchers to not tempt fate in the inner two-thirds of the zone against Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion.

But if you go back and look at where they’ve hit for power, you’ll notice there’s one region where they’re actually quite vulnerable: low and away.

Which makes sense. These are three guys who aren’t exactly going up to the plate looking to knock singles to right field. They’re looking to get all Hulk-like and do some smashing. It’s no wonder they were largely held in check on pitches on and off the outside corner in 2015:

• Donaldson: .149 AVG, .223 SLUG
• Bautista: .201 AVG, .254 SLUG
• Encarnacion: .232 AVG, .366 SLUG

Admittedly, this is the very definition of a cherry-picked weakness. But as far as Toronto’s postseason competition should be concerned, that it’s not totally random and also potentially exploitable makes it better than nothing.

Which leads us to just one question: Which playoff team is best equipped to pound Toronto’s vaunted trio low and away?

If we use Baseball Savant to find which playoff teams threw the highest percentage of low-and-away pitches against right-handed batters, we get this:

According to this data, the Rangers may not present much of a challenge. Though Colby Lewis and Yovani Gallardo did fine at 19.7 and 21.0 percent, respectively, Texas ace Cole Hamels threw only 15.9 percent of his pitches low and away to right-handed batters. Then there’s Derek Holland, who did so with fewer than 10 percent of his pitches.

The Kansas City Royals look like even less of a threat, and that’s no mirage. Of their top three starting pitchers—Yordano Ventura, Johnny Cueto, Edinson Volquez—none even so much as topped 16 percent low-and-away pitches to right-handed batters.

On the other hand, there are the Houston Astros. It’s not surprising to see them atop the list, as Grantland’s Ben Lindbergh noted back in May that pounding hitters low and away is a house specialty in Houston. Dallas Keuchel led the way by throwing a whopping 32.1 percent of his pitches low and away to righties, and Scott Kazmir (20.6) and Collin McHugh (19.4) did well in their own right.

Should the Blue Jays meet the Astros in the ALCS, an upset could be in the works. If not, the Blue Jays wouldn’t necessarily be out of the woods if they happened to be matched up against the Chicago Cubs/Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. That’s where they would run into low-and-away masters Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks and Jason Hammel.

Mind you, one assumes Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion aren’t quaking in their boots at the thought of all this. Baseball players don’t even wear boots, for one. For two, there is the reality that well-laid plans don’t always become well-executed plans. Even if teams decide they’re going to do nothing but pound Toronto’s trio low and away, it’ll be a plan with a relatively small margin for error.

Put another way, the notion that the Donaldson-Bautista-Encarnacion trio does indeed have its own two-meter exhaust port doesn’t make the three of them any less dangerous. That weakness was there all season, after all, and yet they still put up numbers and helped put the Blue Jays on what looks like a direct and smooth path back to the World Series.

Yes, the Blue Jays’ vaunted trio can be stopped. But do not assume even for one second that they will be stopped.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

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While it was an easy call to place the likes of Josh Donaldson and Bryce Harper on this MLB 2015 Year-End All-Star Team, there were plenty of positions where the decision was far more challenging.

Simply put, there were a ton of spots with two or sometimes even three deserving players.

To figure out which position players would make the grade, stats like average, OBP, slugging percentage, OPS, extra-base hits, home runs and WAR were all taken into consideration. Defensive production was also considered—especially at shortstop and catcher, the premier defensive spots on the diamond.

When it came to selecting the starting pitcher and closer, stats like ERA, saves, strikeout-per-nine ratio, FIP, xFIP and WAR were all factored into the equation. And after crunching all those numbers, an unexpected ace ended up claiming the starting nod for this team.

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Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson hit the 100th home run of his career in the first inning of Monday’s 11-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox, going deep off Rick Porcello to give the Jays an early 1-0 lead, per Sportsnet Stats.

Part of MLB‘s most dangerous lineup, Donaldson already has a career-best 37 home runs this season, after hitting 24 (2013) and 29 (2014) in his final two years with the Oakland Athletics.

He has more than justified the hefty price the Jays paid to acquire him in the offseason, with his 37 homers (third in MLB) complemented by MLB-leading totals in RBI (115) and runs (107).

Also boasting a .306 batting average and an excellent defensive reputation, Donaldson leads all American League players with 7.7 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), per Fangraphs.

With Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout in second place at 6.6 WAR and Baltimore Orioles third baseman Manny Machado in third at 5.5, it appears Donaldson is the favorite for MVP honors.

If he does in fact win, Donaldson will become the first AL player since 1972 (Dick Allen) to earn the award after being traded in the offseason, per ESPN’s Buster Olney.

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