The Blue Jays are shaking things up with Spencer Horwitz's expanded versatility

In Spencer Horwitz, the Toronto Blue Jays have an intriguing prospect with nowhere to play him at the big league level. At this point, there's no denying that his bat is big league-ready, as evidenced by his dominance over Triple-A pitching and his stellar 15-game cameo in the majors last season.

However, he plays first base and is rather limited defensively. Horwitz has decent-but-not-great arm strength and his range is very much still a work in progress. That has not stopped the Blue Jays from trying him out at a new position in hopes of expanding his versatility, though.

Horwitz, 26, has begun to get reps at second base on a more consistent basis recently. This is not the first time in his professional career that he's lined up there (one start in 2021, one in 2022 and three last year), but he has now played the position in three of his past four games.

It looks like he's taking to his new position just fine.

Clearly, there are some moving parts here and something could be shifting when it comes to the Blue Jays' big league roster.

Spencer Horwitz getting a look at second base in Triple-A

There's no doubt that the Blue Jays' offense, Saturday's 10-run showing aside, have struggled to string together wins this season. We've already pointed fingers at the club's star-caliber players who haven't shown up yet, but it's not only them that's having troubles getting going.

Much further down the depth chart, Cavan Biggio and Daniel Vogelbach have been borderline unplayable. Biggio has always been a slow starter, as evidenced by his .111 average in April of last year, but he almost always begins to turn it around right around this time.

As of now, the 29-year-old ias 1-for-10 with six strikeouts in five games during the month of May. There's still plenty of time for him to get going, but if the Blue Jays are serious about staying afloat in the AL East, he can't have too long of a leash.

Vogelbach, 31, is here to provide some thump off of the bench in an oft-used pinch-hit role. In 14 games, he's 3-for-29 with two doubles and a single. He hasn't done the job the Jays have requested him to do, so he should have an even shorter leash than Biggio.

Bringing up Horwitz, who can also fake it in left field on occasion, to fill one of the last bench spots on the roster is a must. He deserves consistent playing time, though, so the newfound versatility should give him more of a chance to bounce around as needed.

John Schneider and Co. have always been known to value defensive versatility. Davis Schneider, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Biggio and Ernie Clement are all on the big league roster and are all capable of playing both the infield and outfield.

The argument could be made that none of them have the plate skills that Horwitz has, which is really saying something.

Last year, he hit .337 with 41 extra-base hits in 107 games. He also had a .945 OPS and walked (78) more than he struck out (72), which is an extremely rare trait to have in today's game. In 35 Triple-A contests this year, Horwitz has 15 doubles, two home runs and 24 RBI with a .967 OPS. He's once again walking (30) more than he's striking out (26) and is one of the best hitters in the league so far.

So, to echo a point that we've made a hundred times before, call the man up.