Blue Jays: Five big reasons to love Marcus Semien’s signing

Vlad and Bo stay where they belong

The Blue Jays had a ton of options as far as the best ways to improve this offseason, and signing Semien represents one of the best case scenarios for a variety of reasons.

It sounds like Semien is going to mostly line up at second base, which is a pretty great way for things to work out. I’d argue it might have been even better if they signed a third baseman and Cavan Biggio could have remained at second, but he’s capable of moving around, and Semien is a better player than what the third base market is/was offering.

More importantly, the Blue Jays are able to keep Bo Bichette as the starting shortstop, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. should mostly stay at first base. In my opinion, that’s for the best in both cases. Bichette is shaping up as the franchise player in Toronto these days, and he very much wants to stay at his long-time position. He’s shown steady improvement and there’s no reason to bet against him going forward. At the very least, the Blue Jays need to give him every opportunity to be their answer at shortstop. And in the event that he struggles to stay healthy, the Blue Jays could shift Semien to short for a while and still be in a strong position.

As for Vlad Jr., I couldn’t be more excited about the work he’s put in this offseason. I’m even willing to concede that it would be good to give him the occasional start at third base, adding to the versatility of the roster even further. That said, I never expected that he was a realistic option at the hot corner on a full-time basis, and I’m sure the Blue Jays front office felt the same way. Now the discussion should largely go away.

Semien raises the floor and the ceiling for both the offence and the defence, while not forcing an unnecessary move. I’ll call that a pretty significant win.