Gio Urshela has cryptic troll for Yankees, Josh Donaldson after elimination

Even former New York Yankees players are getting joy from their elimination. Nobody likes this team. Not even the guys who the Yankees gave a chance, and helped emerge as viable MLB talents before parting ways.

Add Minnesota Twins third baseman Gio Urshela to the mix. Back before the start of the season, Urshela and Gary Sanchez were packaged together and sent to the Twins for Josh Donaldson, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Ben Rortvedt — a deal that will surely go down as one of the worst in franchise history.

What the Yankees got in return was a career-worst season from Donaldson, a quasi-shortstop in IKF, whose claim to fame is his ability to contribute as a utility player, and an injured catcher in Rortvedt, who actually did the Yankees a favor by paving the way for Jose Trevino. So hey, we won somewhere.

But paying that price just to get rid of Sanchez, which was clearly the main goal, was a massive oversight. The Yankees could’ve simply non-tendered Sanchez, kept Urshela, and never inherited the ~$60 million owed to Donaldson and IKF.

With the Twins in 2022, Urshela hit .285 with a .767 OPS and 121 OPS+ while providing positive value on the defensive end. Donaldson? He hit .222 with a .682 OPS and 94 OPS+. He had the same amount of extra-base hits as Urshela. His defense was better, but his offense was significantly worse.

Urshela took notes, stayed on top of things, and wished everyone a good morning on Monday … his first tweet directly from himself since April 17, and his first activity on Twitter since late July (outside of a Real Madrid retweet, and we’re not counting that).

Gio Urshela’s Monday tweet was clearly a shot at the New York Yankees

Don’t worry, Donaldson is having a good morning, too! He’s actually happy with the fact he hit .172 with 16 strikeouts in nine postseason games. He worked some counts. That’s the goal, isn’t it?

Let’s go back in time, though. At the time of this trade, it didn’t seem that egregious. It obviously had the potential to blow up in the Yankees’ face, but in essence, the Yankees were getting themselves a stopgap shortstop to prep for the future as well as one of the best power-hitting third basemen of the past decade.

Then again, they could’ve done better than IKF and they didn’t need Donaldson, especially since there was a star-studded FA class that could’ve addressed the shortstop position (as well as the fact Urshela was a fan-favorite/great clubhouse guy).

But according to Cashman, Urshela, who hit .292 with an .815 OPS and 119 OPS+ in 291 games with the Yankees, is “no Josh Donaldson.”

Cashman was right, but not in the way he intended to be. These are two completely different players, and Urshela’s makeup was more important for the Yankees’ roster, not Donaldson’s.

We’ll have a sip of coffee to that, Gio.