Blue Jays: It’s early, but I’ll still admit that I was wrong

Biggio can handle third

I was pretty excited when the Blue Jays signed Marcus Semien, and I believed that his addition would help improve the overall defence from the infield. While the former Oakland A has done his part, unfortunately the left side of the infield has been in shambles thus far.

Bo Bichette has had his fair share of struggles, but the greater source of concern has to be Cavan Biggio at this point. I wrote about how it looks like he’s developed a case of the “yips” the other day, and he made another key error during Saturday’s loss to Tampa Bay. Prior to the season I had some mild concerns about the strength of his throwing arm from the hot corner, but I didn’t see this coming at all.

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Montoyo has already started to react by giving Biggio a pair of starts in the outfield and a break from third base, but that option will be fairly limited once Springer and Hernandez return next week. There’s always the option to move him back to second base and ask Semien to play third, or in a more drastic and potentially disastrous idea, maybe Biggio could move to left and Gurriel Jr. could try to return to the infield.

One way or another the Blue Jays are going to have to find a solution, and it might be as simple as moving Biggio to more or a utility role starting Santiago Espinal and/or Joe Panik a little more regularly at third. Ideally Biggio would at least serviceable when he starts there, but lately it’s looking like that might be an option that needs to come off the table, at least for the time being.

I really didn’t see this coming, especially from a young player that has displayed so much poise in the early stages of his MLB career. Prior to this year, Biggio performed well regardless of where he was playing, but this season has been a different story. We’re only 20 games in so there’s obviously time for that story to change, but so far it’s been a much bigger issue than I would have ever feared.

I didn’t completely whiff on my predictions this year, as I did pick Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to have a big year at least. However, I do have to admit that I was wrong about several expectations I had made for this season.