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.
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