Likelihood of Josh Donaldson Mantaining His Runs Scored Pace
Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports
Since the season is one-third complete, now seems like as good a time as any to go over the fantasy baseball stats leaders, look at their respective paces, and see how likely it is that they’ll maintain their pace.
What’s the purpose of this? Well, if you’re a fantasy owner of these guys, maybe you want to sell high on these guys. If you’re a possible fantasy owner, maybe you’re wondering if now’s the time to buy, or if they’re due for some regression.
Here, we look at runs scored, with Josh Donaldson of the Oakland Athletics leading the way.
Note: Stats are current through conclusion of games on May 31.
- Current Total: 48
- Current Pace: 139
- The last time someone scored 139 runs in a season? Alex Rodriguez (143) and Jimmy Rollins (139), both did so in 2007. It’s worth noting that Mike Trout scored 129 in 2012 despite not getting called up for nearly one full month into the season.
- Josh Donaldson’s Career High? 89 in 2013.
Your teammates can be as important as you when it comes to runs scored — that’s not exactly a secret. But no team has scored more runs than the A’s thus far in 2014, and they were fourth in runs scored in 2013. That definitely works in the favor of Josh Donaldson.
Donaldson’s not a base stealer and while he’s on pace to be well above this total in 2014, he’s never hit more than 24 bombs in a single season, and both of those contribute to runs scored totals in a big way.
Still, something does give me confidence in Donaldson’s run scoring ability. He gets on base…A LOT.
Donaldson has reached base in 46 consecutive games. At a glance, it doesn’t seem all that likely that he’ll keep that going, right? Well, right. I doubt he finishes the season having reached base in 151 consecutive games.
But that doesn’t tell the full story. Right now, Donaldson’s hitting .285 and has an OBP of .379. In 2013, he hit .301 with a .384 OBP. So while it’s unlikely that he’ll get on base every game for the rest of the season, it’s not at all unlikely that he’ll reach base at a similar, or even better, clip. How does that relate to runs scored? Well, it’s tough to score a run when you don’t reach base.
Remember, it might seem like he came out of nowhere and people were certainly expecting some regression, but this has been one of the game’s better hitters going back to the second half of 2012. You do something for that long and it’s a little harder to be dismissed as a fluke, or lucky.
Having said all of that, 139 runs wouldn’t floor me, but I’m not expecting him to get that high. Still, I don’t exactly see him as a sell high candidate, unless you get a great offer. He can fall short of 139 runs and still be a great run scorer for your fantasy team.
Projected Runs Scored Total: 115