Today in Blue Jays history

Two years ago today the Jays made a trade for Josh Donaldson. Scott wrote:

If you're reading this then you most certainly know about the trade that became official a short time ago between the Toronto Blue Jays and Oakland Athletics. Heading to the A's are Brett Lawrie, Franklin Barreto, Kendall Graveman, and Sean Nolin, while the Blue Jays receive All-Star third baseman Josh Donaldson in return. The trade is yet another sign that Alex Anthopoulos and company are very serious about going all in for the next few seasons and have had enough of building up solid farm systems to come up short time and time again. By trading away essentially three top 12 prospects as well as the former Canadian third baseman of the future, Anthopoulos has risked his job and a large part of the franchise's fate on this trade and the Russell Martin signing earlier this month.

Remember what it used to be like when the team would make some Clemensing NEWS in the offseason, so we had something to talk about?

We liked the trade:

I’m not sure that A’s fans would see it as a win-win at the moment.

From Josh we’ve had a MVP season and a season that was pretty much as good. We’ve made it to the ALCS twice.

The players that went to Oakland:

• Brett Lawrie had a pretty average season (.260/.299/.407) and was traded to the White Sox for a couple of guys that could be sort mistaken for prospects, if you squinted.
• Sean Nolan made four started for the A’s and was lost on waivers to the Brewers.
• Kendall Graveman has been pretty ok. He’s made 52 starts, over the 2 seasons, and has a 4.08 ERA and a 16-20 record.
• Franklin Barreto is the prize piece for the A’s. MLB.com considers him their top prospect. He spent most of 2016 at Double-A Midland and hit .281/.340/.413. He had 30 steals (but was caught 15 times). He could turn out to be a very good player, not that player that Donaldson is, but someone the A’s would have under control for a long time.

I’ve enjoyed watching Josh play. I don’t know how Alex managed to work that trade. I was rather irritated when, during the season after the trade, The Sporting News ranked Billy Bean the best GM in baseball and Alex the worst. I know I shouldn’t let those thing bug me.

I’m not sure what the Jays last two years would have looked like without Josh, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been as much.