Brewers Promote Former AL MVP Josh Donaldson For Playoff Push

The Milwaukee Brewers have selected the contract of Josh Donaldson from Triple-A Nashville, marking an anticipated promotion for the former AL MVP.

Josh Donaldson, 37, signed a minor league deal with the Brewers on August 31st after being released by the Yankees. Donaldson was hitting just .142 for the Yankees with 10 homers on just 15 total hits. He played in just 33 games this year due to injuries.

He's healthy now and the Brewers are hoping he'll have some better batted ball luck in Milwaukee. Donaldson currently has the worst season BABIP in MLB history of anyone with at least 100 at bats.

On Monday, the Brewers promoted former AL MVP Josh Donaldson to the active roster, optioning Owen Miller down to Triple-A Nashville.

In order to clear a 40 man roster spot, the Brewers transferred reliever JC Mejia from the 15 day IL to the 60 day IL. Owen Miller was optioned to clear an active roster spot.

The timing on the decision to promote the Donaldson is intriguing because he only had about a week of games in Nashville and was hitting just .176 with the Sounds, going 3-for-17. Two of his three hits, however, were homers. He also drew more walks (five) than strikeouts (four). There's also less than three weeks left in the regular season and the sooner he arrives, the sooner he can make an impact. No matter how much time he spent in Triple-A, Donaldson isn't going to turn back into a .300 hitter in the big leagues.

Two out of three hits for Donaldson with the Yankees this year were home runs and now two out of three hits with the Sounds have been home runs.

The Brewers are clearly looking for an infusion of power in their lineup and Donaldson certainly brings that. He may not bring much else offensively, though his defense is still superb.

If Donaldson can hit some big homers down the stretch, he can be a big factor in the Brewers winning some more games and securing the NL Central crown. That's what the Brewers are banking on here. Andruw Monasterio has been a solid hitter and playing very well over the last couple weeks, but he doesn't supply much power from the third base position. The Brewers need more power in their lineup and Monasterio can't provide that.

It's quite surprising that the Brewers decided to option Owen Miller down to Triple-A to clear room when Donaldson plays the same position as Brian Anderson and Anderson hasn't seen the field in weeks.

Anderson's completely healthy, but he hasn't made one start, hasn't had one pinch hit appearance, hasn't played one inning in the field since August 22nd. It seems like Anderson doesn't have a place on this team, yet he remains on the roster as Donaldson comes up and makes it even more difficult for Anderson to crack the lineup

It's unclear why the Brewers felt it necessary to keep both Donaldson and Anderson on the active roster, but it doesn't seem like Anderson's playing time is about to increase anytime soon.