The cases against Biggio, Belt, and (mostly) all of their potential replacements
On a pair of struggling Blue Jays, and their lack of competition for jobs from 40-man players like Addison Barger, Otto Lopez, Leo Jimenez, and Orelvis Martinez. Plus one exception!
Blue Jays fans have started to lose patience with Cavan Biggio and Brandon Belt. Frankly, the Blue Jays themselves appear to be losing it with them. And yet, as valid as some of the frustrated howls that these guys need to be off the team may be, they tend to overlook a rather important aspect of running guys out of town: who on earth would be replacing them on the roster.
Before you shout "anyone!", let's think about this for a minute, eh? There are a number of names that Jays fans will be familiar with who could take over those spots, but I'm not sure if we're quite as familiar with how these guys have been faring since spring training ended.
So let's take a look at exactly that — and at how Biggio and Belt got here in the first place. Here are the cases against… all of them!
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The case against Cavan Biggio…
Even the most ardent supporters of Cavan Biggio would have to admit that he looks lost at the plate right now. Of 309 batters with at least 50 plate appearances his 24 wRC+ is the tenth-lowest. His 83.9 mph average exit velocity is fifth-lowest. His 40% strikeout rate is sixth-worst. His maximum exit velocity of 103.6 mph is the 10th-lowest. His 6% walk rate — the number representing his lone supposedly elite skill — is less than half of what it was last season (12.5%), which at the time was the lowest mark of his career. And, unfortunately for him, for as long as he remains on the Blue Jays he's going to have a very difficult time getting enough playing time to really get his bat going.
One could point to the fact that Biggio has the league's highest rate of pitches outside of the zone being incorrectly called as strikes, and the fact that his BABIP sits at a lowly .154, to suggest that his awful numbers have been unduly affected by luck. But I don't think that's the correct analysis here.
For one thing, only three of those incorrect calls came with two strikes, meaning that if we erase those Ks his strikeout rate only goes down to a still=ugly 34%. And only one came in a three ball count, so if we credit him an extra walk his rate jumps to just 7.5%.
Also worth noting on the subject of these non-calls is that he was not nearly such an outlier over the last four months of 2022, which really seems to have been the point where things went sideways for him in term of walk rate. Through the end of June of last year, Biggio’s career walk rate was 15%. Since then it's been just 9%. That's still above average, and we're talking about a sample of fewer than 250 plate appearances, but Biggio really needs to be walking at an elite rate for his low-power, low-average profile to work. Whit Merrifield he is not.
My view on this has long been that Biggio's relatively inability to do damage was eventually going to catch up to him in the form of pitchers more aggressively challenging him, which would neutralize his ability to draw walks. The way his walk rate has cratered since the middle of last season has been so dramatic, and has happened in such a small sample, that I hesitate to conclude that's what's going on. But there are certainly signs. The percentage of fastballs in the zone that Biggio has seen has risen in every year of his career, from 51% in his rookie season to 62% currently. We can see the same trend in the percentage of fastballs in the zone he's seen when the pitcher is behind in the count — from 57% in 2019 to 77% this year — and also in three-ball counts.
Maybe most telling is the fact that 80% of the fastballs he's seen in 3-2 counts — representing 71% of the pitches he's seen in that situation — have been in the zone. It needs to be noted that parsing things this way means we're working with really small and volatile samples, but it looks to me like pitchers are growing increasingly more comfortable with throwing him strikes and daring him to do anything with them.
And why wouldn't they? Biggio's awful BABIP suggests bad luck, but his quality of contact numbers do not. His .206 xwOBA is nearly identical to his .204 wOBA.
It's been ugly. And though a few good knocks could change the way he’s being approached fairly quickly, and some amount of positive regression can be expected, Biggio's trouble doing damage isn't exactly new. That said, I don't want to overstate by how much this is true. In 303 PA last season, Biggio's wRC+ was about league average (97). His maximum exit velocity was the 26th lowest out of 277 batters with more than 300 PA, but his average exit velocity was 185th and his ISO was 150th.
These aren't great numbers, but they're fine enough for the backup/utility role that I think everyone is clear by now suits him best. There are also some very good hitters that can get away with comparable numbers: in 2022 he had about the same average EV as Adley Rutschman, about the same max EV as Mark Canha, and about the same ISO as Xander Bogaerts. Even if we look at his much talked-about struggles with velocity, he’s also in the same range as some great bats. Since 2021 his .211 wOBA on pitches at 97 or above ranks 231st of 270 batters with at least 2,500 seen — which somewhat surprisingly is above Julio Rodríguez, and not far below Randy Arozarena, Pete Alonso, and Kyle Schwarber.
But, of course, those guys clearly have a lot more power than Biggio does, and do a lot of things better at the plate as well, which allows them to get away with Biggio-like tendencies in specific and narrow ways. Still, Biggio's not miles and miles away from being a big league calibre hitter the way I think a lot of fans feel based on the way he's going at the moment, unfortunately the margins at this level are incredibly thin, and even with an elite walk rate there's not a lot of there there.
Without it, and with just about every meaningful metric at a low ebb for his seemingly ever-worsening career, for the moment he doesn’t really belong on the big league roster of a team with championship aspirations.
The case against Brandon Belt…
Yeah, a vesting option was the key number involved in his release, but back in 2008, 40-year-old Frank Thomas lasted just 72 plate appearances before the Jays felt a move needed to be made. He had slashed .167/.306/.333 (76 wRC+).
Back in April of 2018, after languishing unsigned for the entire winter, 37-year-old José Bautista was given a chance by Atlanta, and his former GM, Alex Anthopoulos. Recalled to the big leagues after heating up in the minors in early May, Bautista lasted just 40 plate appearances. Over that span he slashed just .143/.250/.343 (59 wRC+).
Brandon Belt, 35, has now made 68 plate appearances for the Blue Jays. He's slashing .161/.235/.274.
With Biggio and Nathan Lukes also offering virtually nothing for their roster spots — plus an extra spot than existed in 2008 and 2018, and a finite number of pitchers that teams can carry — the Jays have the luxury of giving Belt more time than either of those guys received. But their cases, I think, give an indication of just how quickly teams will come to the decision that a struggling, over-the-hill player is, in actual fact, cooked.
It's worth noting here that both Thomas and Bautista actually went on to make positive contributions in new locations after their release. The Big Hurt went back to Oakland, where he'd had a successful 2006, and put up a 109 wRC+ over 217 PA (though he missed all of June, July, and September due to injury). Joey Bats caught on with the Mets for 302 PA and produced at a 106 wRC+ clip before catching on with the Phillies and finishing even stronger than that.
It's also worth noting that those dead cat bounces did not bring those guys back up to the expected levels of production for their roles, and that they were both out of baseball the following year.
Belt is younger than both, and he likely gets a little bit of leeway because of the knee surgery he had over the winter, but already we're seeing signs that this may not end well.
First and foremost, he's certainly not passing the eye test. We've also recently seen the Jays decline to use him in situations where a high-OBP lefty with some thump — the guy he's supposed to be — should be an automatic pinch hit choice. That could be an indication that he's dealing with an injury, or the viral bug that seems to be going around the Jays' clubhouse a little bit. But it's worth remembering that while fans have mostly only been paying attention for a month, the Jays have been seeing him up close since mid-February. And it's been ugly.
Yes, his spring output looked pretty good (.286/.375/.429) in a meaningless 24 PA sample. But according to Baseball Reference — which, for some reason excludes Belt's two-RBI single off of fringe big leaguer Bailey Falter in the Jays' spring finale against the Phillies — his quality of competition rating for the spring was just 7.2. That's a number that represents the levels at which a player's opponents played in the previous season, with 10 being a full-time big leaguer, eight being Triple-A, and seven being Double-A.
And yes, he's rebounded a bit since his awful first 25 plate appearances of the season, but seems to once again be in something of a trough. Even if we very generously exclude those first five games the numbers aren't great. Since then he's slashed just .231/.302/.385 (93 wRC+) with a 35% strikeout rate.
Plus, this is just horrific.
I was a big proponent of signing this guy, because the fit on this team if he went back to being 2021 Belt was absolutely perfect. I’m also willing to give him more time because of the knee — you’d hate to give up too soon and watch him get stronger and stronger elsewhere as the season goes on — and am usually willing to give players a lot more time than most. Hell, I was willing to wait longer Jarrod Saltalamacchia! Lol.
But if we were placing bets right now on “cooked” or “not cooked,” I just don’t see a way to take the latter. And unless something changes in a hurry, we’re probably not going to be having this conversation come June.
The cases against Addison Barger, Otto Lopez, Leo Jimenez, and Orelvis Martinez…
Four prospects. Four versatile defenders. Four guys on the Blue Jays' 40-man. And four guys about whom it's going to be very easy for me to argue that they absolutely do not deserve to take anyone's spot on a big league roster just yet.
Addison Barger
The Jays' addition of several left-handed hitters over the winter, plus their increasingly odd loyalty to Biggio, appeared this spring to be a roadblock for the the very impressive 23-year-old Barger. In 2022 he mashed his way from High-A to Triple-A, saving his most impressive work for an eight-game cameo in Buffalo where he slashed a ridiculous .355/.444/.677 with five walks to just five strikeouts in 36 PA. Barger also opened a lot of eyes with a strong start to spring in Dunedin, displaying his excellent bat speed, spraying hard hit balls everywhere he went, and generating chatter about potentially even making the team out of camp. (OppQual: 7.0)
With a healthy big league roster and Barger having such limited experience in Triple-A, that was certainly not going to happen. But he put his name on the map and, at least for a time, made some fans wonder if he might allow the club to seamlessly transition away from pending free agent Matt Chapman by taking the third base job next season. (For the record, unless he mashes at the big league level for an extended period later this summer, I have an incredibly hard time seeing the Jays handing the keys to third base in what will be Vlad and Bo's penultimate year before free agency to a rookie.)
Not only that, Barger found himself getting love from the industry at large, popping up at number 53 on Eric Longenhagen and Tess Tarukin's pre-season Top 100 prospects list for FanGraphs. They placed him at the same end of the 50 FV (Future Value) tier of their rankings as the Yankees' Oswaldo Peraza, who is the same age and — albeit because of the New York's injury woes — is already in the big leagues.
Barger is a good prospect who should absolutely see time in the Show this year if he earns it.
And yet, over 87 PA for the Bisons so far he's slashed a not-very-big-league-looking .237/.333/.329 (75 wRC+) while striking out 31% of the time. And this week he was placed on the IL with elbow inflammation. It's not his time.
Otto Lopez
Montreal's Otto Lopez had a nice showing in the World Baseball Classic for Canada, going 5-for-17 with a triple, a home run, six RBIs, four runs scored, a pair of walks, and just a single strikeout (.294/.333/.588). That was a tasty flash of power for a guy who doesn't profile as someone who is going to knock the cover off the ball — which might not even matter, as FanGraphs explains that he "tends to poke soft contact the other way, wearing out shallow right field," and is "especially difficult to beat with fastballs and puts enough balls in play to be a semi-regular big leaguer at several positions."
He's not only been on the radar of Jays fans because of his time with the national team, as Lopez also got a cup of coffee in the big leagues back in 2021, and into eight games last season as well.
It was a good season for him in 2022, as he more than held his own at Triple-A, slashing .297/.378/.415 (114 wRC+) over 391 PA for the Bisons, while posting typically impressive walk (10.5%) and strikeout (15.6%) rates. He can also play several positions, including spending time in centre field, and though the scouting buzz seems to suggest that shortstop shouldn't be one of them, Team Canada thought otherwise this spring.
Not only that, he certainly held his own in his brief time as a big leaguer, picking up just six singles and a walk over just 10 plate appearances last October (before the playoffs, obviously).
He, too, is a pretty decent prospect who should certainly see some more time in the majors before all is said and done. The vast majority of that will likely be elsewhere, though. For two reasons.
One, Lopez came into this season with just one minor league option year remaining. Next spring he'll be out of them, and therefore would have to clear waivers if the Jays wanted to send him back to Buffalo. That makes him a prime candidate to be sent elsewhere in a deal at this year's trade deadline or sometime next winter. Provided, that is, that he doesn't establish himself as a big leaguer in the next three months or so.
And two, before he gets the chance to do that he's going to have to re-establish himself at Buffalo a little bit.
Yes, Lopez was added to the Jays' taxi squad a couple weeks ago when it was unclear whether Santiago Espinal would be able to avoid the IL after being hit on the wrist by a Gerrit Cole fastball. The organization clearly thinks pretty highly of him. However, over 88 PA for the Bisons so far he's slashed .171/.227/.244 (16 wRC+), producing an ISO of just .073. It's not his time yet either.
Leo Jimenez
Leo Jimenez is currently in Double-A New Hampshire and won't turn 22 until the middle of this month, so it's a bit early to be thinking about him for a big league job. But he's another prospect in the same sort of future utility guy mould as the two above, and the Jays seem to really like what he can do on the field — at least when he's been healthy enough to stay on it.
Back in December, when profiling Jimenez in his excellent 12 Days of Prospects series, D.M. Fox noted that he has long been one of farm director Andrew Tinnish's favourites. He certainly opened some other eyes in A-ball back in 2021, putting up an absurd slash line of .315/.517/.381 over 242 PA. However, that was the year that MLB first experimented with the ABS system (aka "robo umps") in the Florida State League (or whatever they were calling it that season), so we need to look at Jimenez's 21% walk rate with a healthy dose of skepticism. Still, he did it better than just about anyone in the league that season. He was top among his age cohort by BB%, and second to only the Yankees' Anthony Volpe among 20-year-olds by wRC+.
Last year he moved to High-A Vancouver, but health was once again was an issue, as was a slow start. However, he did manage to get himself added to the 40 prior to the Rule 5 draft for reasons that Fox explains:
Jimenez had one of the better chase rates in the organization, and saw a career high in pitches/AB. On top of that, his average exit velos continue to go up, and while his numbers this season (.230/.340/.385) were underwhelming, he put everything together in July (.967 OPS), and gave us a glimpse of what could be.
We're also told that Jimenez stayed in Florida this winter, rather than returning home to Panama, which provided even more hope that the breakout will finally come this year. Unfortunately, over 44 PA for the Fisher Cats so far he's slashed .225/.311/.250 (69 wRC+) with a walk rate that currently sits way down at 6.7%. His time it is not.
Orelvis Martinez
A genuine sensation coming out of spring training in 2022, Orelvis had plenty of Jays fans insisting that he was ready for the majors after he went 4-for-13 with two doubles, two homers, and two walks (.308/.400/.923) over eight games in Dunedin, after a similarly preposterous spring showing as a 19-year-old the year before.
He was, uh, not ready.
Martinez was sent to New Hampshire to start last season, and even that assignment proved too aggressive. Sure, he crushed 30 bombs for the Fisher Cats, and kept his walk rate at a respectable 8%, but those are just about the only positives that can be taken from his year — at least statistically. Martinez struggled with more advanced pitching and his strikeout rate jumped from 22% in High-A to 28.5%
He came close to replicating his High-A numbers otherwise. Unfortunately, he had struggled badly when first sent to Vancouver in 2021 before appearing as though he'd figured it out in the last couple weeks of the year. Combine the bad and the good stretches and he ended up basically average: a 99 wRC+ from a .214/.282/.491 line.
Over 492 PA in 2022 he slashed a thoroughly disappointing .203/.286/.446 (96 wRC+).
He's not exactly shrunk into a non-prospect because of this, but he did fall off of the top 100 lists for FanGraphs, Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, and MLB.com this winter, and has found himself back in New Hampshire again to start 2023.
The good news on that front is that the walk rate has held, and his strikeout rate is down to 23%. The bad news is that he doesn’t appear to be moving up to even Triple-A anytime soon. Over 64 PA so far he's slashed an atrocious .089/.159/.250 (12 wRC+) with only two hits that didn't leave the yard. It surely is not his time yet.
Suckers they be sayin’…
Despite the struggles chronicled above, there are some early-season bright spots in the Jays’ system.
If you had asked me five weeks ago to guess which Blue Jays position player prospect would be closest to earning a call-up, the first name I would have arrived at wouldn't have been Spencer Horwitz. And it certainly wouldn't be Damiano Palmegiani.
We'll leave Palmegiani aside in this one because he's not on the 40-man, even though his .276/.462/.414 (162 wRC+) start to life in New Hampshire — with walk and strikeout rates of 22% and 24% respectively! — demands to be noticed. (Especially for a guy FanGraphs said pre-season was "drafted as a high-upside bat" and now "is making good on the offensive aspect of his pre-draft report.")
Horwitz, on the other hand, was a mildly surprising addition to the 40-man back in November. After tearing up Double-A as a 24-year-old for most of the year in 2022, he was promoted to Buffalo for the final 44 games of his season, and was merely OK. His elite walk and strikeout rates held, but his power did not. He went from averaging a home run ever 28 plate appearances to averaging one per 101. And his ISO dropped over 100 points with the move to Buffalo's Sahlen Field and away from the rather lefty-friendly dimensions in Manchester.
A guy who can basically only play first base, didn't put up great numbers in Triple-A, and is entering his age-25 season wasn't an obvious candidate to be protected from the Rule 5. But there's more to Horwitz's story than just that. For one thing, in addition to crushing it at Double-A in 2022, he'd looked great against some very strong competition in the Arizona Fall League in 2021, slashing .375/.460/.484 over 74 PA. And by the time he got to Buffalo last summer he also, as TSN's Scott Mitchell noted when ranking him the Jays' 15th best prospect back in January, was dealing with a wrist issue that he "was rehabbing into the offseason."
For another thing, he's got a knack for making contact that doesn't necessarily show up in something like his strikeout rate, which is only a little bit above average. And, according to Baseball America, a simplified swing in the last couple of seasons has allowed him to increase his maximum exit velocity from 106 to 110. Back on Friday in Gwinnett he put a ball in play at 109, which is just about the big league median.
Brandon Belt’s maximum as a Blue Jay is 104.5.
You're not going to find me out here pounding my fist on the table for a move to be made just yet, but the bigger EVs, a healthier wrist, and a little more experience in Triple-A than he had last year is certainly making him someone worth thinking about as Belt continues to struggle.
Right now, through 102 PA for the Bisons, Horwitz is slashing .296/.441/.432 (136 wRC+), with a remarkable 18.6% walk rate and a very good 19.6% strikeout rate.
How well those numbers would translate to the majors right now is difficult to say, but Steamer's rest-of-season projection for Horwitz has him at .237/.334/.372 (106 wRC+).
Steamer's ROS for Brandon Belt? .218/.320/.393 (106 wRC+).
There may come a point where the Jays think their best course of action is to try to catch lightning in a bottle. Yes, the jump from Triple-A to the big leagues is obviously a huge one. But the jump from washed to productive may be even bigger.
Free Spencer Horwitz!
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This really cheered me up, thanks.
Case FOR Tim Anderson: GO!