Brendan Donovan

On the record · career milestone this season

500 career hits — Thu, Mar 26 · night game vs. Cleveland Guardians The scorecard → · The write-up →

The card rack

FlagshipBrendan Donovan #US150 · 2022 Topps Update · 57 recent sales 7N ▲0%

$1.55Raw$9.97PSA 9$12.63PSA 10$16.00BGS 10PSA 10 · 12 nights

Live on eBay now · asking, not sold · as of 2026-09-04 · paid links

$0.99Ungraded$0.99Ungraded$1.00Ungraded

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The rookieBrendan Donovan #543 · 2022 Topps Heritage · 54 recent sales 7N ▲0%

$1.34Raw$25.46PSA 9$32.00PSA 10$42.00BGS 10PSA 10 · 12 nights

Live on eBay now · asking, not sold · as of 2026-09-04 · paid links

$1.00Ungraded$1.39Ungraded$1.40Ungraded

See all on eBay →

Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases. · Flagship = his most-traded card (the market’s reference); the rookie = the top card of his first card year. As of September 4, 2026 · trend is FVR's own nightly archive · prices via SportsCardsPro · what these terms mean

Scout’s note

Drafted in the seventh round out of Wurzberg, Germany in 2018, Brendan Donovan is a 29-year-old third baseman who has built a major-league resume on contact that doesn't match his outcomes. His EV95 is 101.2, far south of the 105.8 league median, but his results still outrun his contact by more than 96 percent of the 382 qualified MLB hitters we measure. That overperformance leaves a luck gap of 0.0502, putting him at No. 15 of 15 on the fade board. He has appeared in just 2 MLB games over the last 14 days, hitting .444 in that small slice. Across 531 career MLB games, he has hit .282, and while his current .277 average for Seattle looks steady, the engine says his bat isn't doing the work those numbers suggest.

Note written Sep 3 · FVR scout (GLM-5.2)

Current signals

The read: Donovan's results are outrunning his contact by more than 96% of the 382 qualified MLB hitters we track — an EV95 of 101.2 (league median 105.7) doesn't usually buy this stat line. Gaps like his tend to close from above; No. 15 of 15 on the fade board.

PAID — his line has outrun his contact. Where he sits in the league →

EV95 (mph)

101.2

Luck gap (park-adj)

0.0497

Overlay score

-0.5894

WAR (season · MLB calc)

1.0

Balls in play

113

Sprint (ft/s)

25.7

Age

29

A market fact, not an engine read: what a club decided about him, on the season before this one. Figures from Cot’s, as of August 24, 2026.

2026 salary

$5.80M

Tax hit

$5.80M

Service time

4 yr 0 d

Options left

2 / 3

Cash and the tax hit are two different rulebooks and are never subtracted from one another — see the payroll board for his club, Seattle Mariners.

A second set of books

The same contract, read by MLB Spreadsheets (Ethan Hullihen), as of August 27, 2026. We keep two sources on this because one source cannot check itself.

Tax AAV

$5.80M

Guaranteed

$5.80M

Term

1 yr

His class

Arb

The tax AAV above is his number under the CBA’s own rulebook, not the average we work out from Cot’s total. On a contract with deferred money the two come apart on purpose — and neither is subtracted from the other.

Collect Brendan Donovan

If the signal is right, the cardboard usually finds out later. Current listings:

High-end listings ($75+) →

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Not financial advice. We take positions only after publication — never before. Misses stay on the record.