Cavan Biggio suffered an injury to his left elbow while diving for a ball in a Triple-A game on Friday, the Blue Jays told TSN’s Scott Mitchell and other reporters. The extent of the injury isn’t yet known. Biggio was already seven games deep into a minor league rehab assignment, after being placed on the 10-day injured list on August 3 due to back tightness.
Between that injury and an earlier IL stint due to a cervical spine ligament sprain, it perhaps isn’t surprising that Biggio has struggled to a .215/.316/.350 slash line over 290 plate appearances this season. It’s been a tough setback for a player who had seemingly emerged as part of the Jays’ young core, as Biggio produced a 118 wRC+ over 695 PA in 2019-20. This elbow injury could hamper Biggio’s chances of returning to the big league roster and salvaging something from this season, and it remains to be seen how he’ll fit into Toronto’s plans for 2022.
More on other injury situations from around baseball…
- The Royals placed left-hander Jake Brentz on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to August 21) due to left shoulder impingement syndrome. Righty Kyle Zimmer was reinstated from the 10-day IL to take Brentz’s spot on the active roster. Brentz’s first MLB season has been a successful one, as the southpaw has posted a 3.15 ERA and an above-average 27.4% strikeout rate over his first 54 1/3 innings in the big leagues. The hard-throwing Brentz has drawn some buzz as a potential closer of the future for Kansas City, though he has yet to solve his career-long control issues, as Brentz has a 14.5% walk rate this season.
- Nico Hoerner left his first rehab game yesterday, though the Cubs told The Chicago Tribune’s Meghan Montemurro and other reporters that Hoerner didn’t suffer a setback to his injured oblique. While it isn’t known when Hoerner will officially get back to rehab games, he is expected to resume baseball activities this week. 2021 has been an injury-plagued season for Hoerner, who has played in only 39 games due to forearm and hamstring strains, plus this oblique strain that has kept him out of action since July 29.
- White Sox right-hander Jonathan Stiever underwent season-ending surgery to correct a lat injury, assistant GM Chris Getz told reporters (including The Athletic’s James Fegan). Stiever is expected to be ready in time for the start of Spring Training. Stiever has tossed 6 1/3 innings over three big league games in the last two seasons, with an ugly 14.21 ERA to show for his brief tenure in the majors. Due to the cancelled 2020 minor league season, Stiever made the jump to the Show from high-A ball, and he has struggled to a 5.84 ERA over 74 innings for Triple-A Charlotte this season.
What happened to Cavan, he fell off a cliff
Was thinking the sane. Didnt realize he got demoted.
“ Biggio was already seven games deep into a minor league rehab assignment”
This is the last sentence in the first paragraph.
He did not get demoted. He was on a rehab assignment after an injury.
Technically it’s a bit of both, he got hurt and is on a rehab assignment, but they’ve also called up two infielders while he was healthy because they want him to sort himself out and earn his way back.
Thanks, @lambchops.
Yeah I think so too @dusty. He was hurt, but he also kinda kinda sucked for awhile lol. Makes sense
He was on an injury rehab, not demoted
Right but then he was healthy and they called up Lopez and Smith so it’s worked out as a demotion
If Blue Jay’s wanted to give up on Biggio there would be a line around the building of GMs hot after him.
He should be part of the package that goes to Cleveland for JRam
Are you a fellow Blue Jay discord member…
It’s hilarious to me that the jays biggest need on offence is to get more left handed so jays fans solution is to trade away their only left handed regular bat… probably because they look at batting average for some reason still.
JRam is a switch’s
Get more left handed is equivalent to find guys who can hit righties
The Blue Jays actually hit better against right handed pitching than left handed pitching.
Ramirez is a switch hitter bro lol
Plus Cavan is not that good. Jose Ramirez would be an enormous upgrade.
That’s what makes Springer so damn good. He kills righties even though he is right handed.
Biggio is going to the Cubs
Biggio to the Cubs? Anythings possible but I doubt it. He sems like a project or maybe a change of scenery type of player. The Cubs have plenty of infielders in the pipeline that they are currently trying to form into major league players over the next 2-3 years-Cristian Hernandez, Ed Howard, Reginald Preciado, James Triantos, Christopher Morel, Chase Strumpf. They currently plan to have Madrigal, Hoener, Wisdom, Bote, Alcántara in the plans for next season.
Semien and Espinal have made Biggio unnecessary this year. They’ll need him next year if they can’t retain Semien (my guess is we’ll see Smith and Biggio split time at 2B until one gets hot). The silver lining is this was a good time for him to have an injury-riddled bad season.
I feel bad for Cavan Biggio, and the Jays have not helped him out much. You have a young player still trying to establish himself in the Bigs and the team makes him the starter at thirdbase, a very difficult position he has played rarely over his career, Minors or Majors. When he has a few bumps in the road on defense, the Jays started playing Espinal more and more. Biggio should have had a half season in Buffalo(or where ever) playing exclusively at third. I feel Toronto has misplayed how they used Biggio and maybe the best thing for Cavan is a fresh start with a new organization.
The mistake was made in the offseason, when they decided to unnecessarily shuffle two infielders instead of one. Biggio was a good second baseman who doesn’t have the arm to be more than tolerable at third. Semien, on the other hand, could’ve adapted to third as smoothly as he adapted to second.
Starting Biggio in AAA was never a sensible solution — they thought he was going to hit this season.
Unless you think his defensive issues affected his bat, his place on the diamond is only part of the story. Ultimately he’s looks lost at the plate and that’s the bulk of it
His injuries obviously affected his bat. Who can hit with a bad neck and back and fingers?
But there was also his ill-fated attempt to change who he was as a hitter at the start of the season by chasing more pitches early in counts.
He’s never going to hit like his dad, but I’ll bet on him putting up a league average OPS next year.