Gerrit Cole and Josh Donaldson are all good.
That was not always the case.
Last season, Donaldson was one of the most outspoken critics of pitchers caught in the sticky substances debacle, of which Cole was the posterboy of. So, when the New York Yankees traded for Donaldson last month, there was curiosity about the impact his addition would have on the locker room.
All sides had made clear they hashed things out and are good now. During an appearance on CC Sabathia’s podcast “R2C2”, Donaldson told the story of how they got to being on the same page.
"For me, as soon as I talked to (Brian Cashman) and he told me the trade was going down, I was like alright I’ll be there tomorrow," Donaldson said. "And I was in Ft. Myers, it was going to take me two and a half hours to get there, but I wanted to make it a point to show them that I want to be there. So I drove that morning and I said look, I need to have a talk with Gerrit.
“Obviously, he’s going to have certain feelings toward me. I want to hear him out, and I want him to hear me out. After that, after this meeting, it’s over. That was important to me, and I felt like, for me, showing him that it was important for me to hear him out – me and him are boys now. My fiancée hangs out with his wife, our kids had a playdate.
“I love baseball, Gerrit loves baseball. He loves to talk baseball, so do I. So at the end of the day, we’re going to have conversations, which is cool.”
Ultimately, Donaldson is a good addition to the Yankees, and the differences between him and Cole never really were cause to not make that trade.
The fact that they ended up talking things out only validates the hunch Cashman evidently had that bringing in Donaldson would be a non-issue.
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