Blue Jays: Cavan Biggio Is Setting Himself Up For A Demotion

I’ll be the first to admit that I have never been a huge Cavan Biggio fan and have always found him to be a tad bit overrated.  Don’t get me wrong, prior to this season I still viewed the Texas native as a competent Major League player, but didn’t see him in the same light as other fans who looked at him as part of this team’s core and on the same level as Vladimir Guerrero Jr and Bo Bichette.

Before the 2021 season, I personally saw Biggio as someone who could be a really good utility player on a championship team, but not a guy you would want in your lineup on an everyday basis.  So far this season, Biggio has been a shell of his former self and has turned into a liability due to his play in the field and also at the dish.  If this continues, there could definitely be a trip to Trenton New York (the Jays temporary AAA home) in Biggio’s future.

The Notre Dame product has looked lost at the plate early this season, hitting an abysmal .171 with an OPS just above .650.  Biggio has also seen a dip in both his Walk Percentage and Chase Rate, going from the 92nd and 100th percentile in 2020, to the 75th and 52nd percentile in 2021 respectively, according to Baseball Savant.  Biggio’s plate discipline has always been his calling card, so seeing the drop in walks and the rise in swing and miss is definitely alarming.

Along with his struggles at the dish, Biggio has been horrific in the field while trying to adjust to the hot corner.  If you tuned into the Blue Jays series opener against the Royals on Thursday, you would have got to see this first hand.  Biggio was charged with two errors on the night, along with a handful of other miss-cues that cost the Jays runs and really hurt starter Anthony Kay, who threw the ball well in his season debut.

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This poor defensive play is nothing new for Biggio, who has committed three errors so far this season and has had countless other miscues that have been costly to a team that has struggled to score runs constantly early on.

Yes, the season is only two weeks old and Biggio has plenty of time to turn things around.  If he fails to do so, the second generation player may find himself back in the minors in no time.  We saw the Jays use a similar approach with Teoscar Hernandez and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. back in 2019.  Both players struggled to begin the campaign and were optioned to Buffalo early in the season.

After about a month in the minors, both outfielders came back up to the bigs and looked so much better in all aspects of their game.  Gurriel re-joined the club and started patrolling left field which helped him regain his confidence both in the field and at plate, and saw him turn back into the highly regarded prospect that we were so excited about after his impressive 2018 season .  Hernandez headed north with a refined approach at the dish, which helped him capture a Silver Slugger Award in 2020.

This tactic is definitely unorthodox and could do more harm than good if Biggio takes the demotion the wrong way. It could also cause more damage to his confidence, which seems to be at an all time low.  I don’t know if Biggio could be playing any worse than he is at the moment and because of this, I think every option has to be on the table when figuring out how to revive his game.  Maybe a trip to AAA is just what he needs.