This right here is precisely what a lot of us are trying to discuss.
No one is going to tell you that there isn't a spectrum to Saying Bad Shit. No one will disagree with you if you posit that, "saying the N-word would have been worse," or "more racist."
But the sum of your argument, that "intent matters," is only in service of one thing: Josh Donaldson could have been more racist if he wanted to be, and because there's a way to look at this that makes him seem like more of an idiot than a bonafide, capital-R Racist, we're better off talking about it in those terms.
We're better off talking about how, actually, Josh was right about Anderson not being Jackie, but the problem here is that he said it in a "PC world" where "certain things can't even be touched."
All you're doing is creating cartilage between "Josh was just making a baseball point" and "we live in a politically correct world where no one can say what's on their mind." When you tell me that you're not defending him, what you're saying is that you agree with whatever baseball point you assume he was trying to make, but personally, you wouldn't have said what he said, because you understand how the PC world can be.
By framing the discussion this way, and by insisting that others do so as well, you are defending him and the culture that fosters these feelings and impulses. You are saying, essentially, that there are two discussions to be had ("was Josh Donaldson being racist" / "was Josh Donaldson boorish") and neither the twain shall meet. You are arguing that there cannot be any racial connotation whatsoever, unless you consider the response from people like me.