Blue Jays: Good and bad, careers that changed from a year ago

From core piece, to chopped meat

While it was a lot more fun to talk about how much things improved for Tim Mayza over the last year, it didn’t go that way for everybody. There are a handful of players we could talk about in that regard, but at the top of the list would be Cavan Biggio.

Think back to a year ago and you might remember the promo spots the Blue Jays used to run that included Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and Cavan Biggio. It was an easy thing to feature since all of their fathers are well known former big leaguers, but it was always a bit of a reach to include Biggio in the same company as the other two, even if they’d all moved through the minor league system together. In 2021, that became more apparent than ever.

Having said that, I believe that Biggio’s struggles last season were largely due to injury, and I’m a believe in a bounce-back season ahead for the versatile infielder. I think he’ll be better off if he’s able to return to his more natural position at second base, but we’ll see what happens with the rest of the Blue Jays roster build was the lockout finally comes to an end.

While Biggio may not be the star of this team by any means, he showed what kind of value he can bring to the table over the course of his first two seasons in the big leagues. Over those first two years he played in 159 games, roughly the equivalent to a full season in the big leagues, and he earned 5.0 bWAR the along. That’s an immensely valuable player, and one that was putting up those numbers while still getting their feet wet in the big leagues.

Do I think Biggio is going to be a 5.0 WAR player in the future? I sincerely doubt it, but that doesn’t mean he can’t recover his value and make an important contribution to the Blue Jays in 2022 and beyond. Count me among the believers that think he’ll do just that, and hopefully I’ll be able to write about him in this same kind of space in a year from now, but in a much more positive light.