The Braves have acquired infielder Cavan Biggio from the Giants, as noted by Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Per Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area, the Giants are receiving cash considerations in return for Biggio’s services. Biggio is on a minor league deal and as such was eligible to be traded despite the trade deadline having passed. As he was acquired after the calendar flipped to September, Biggio will not be eligible to participate in the postseason with the Braves.
Biggio, 29, was a fifth-round pick by the Blue Jays back in 2016 who made his big league debut in 2019. Once seen as part of a budding core of youngsters in Toronto who were the children of former big leagues, Biggio’s career got off to a strong start as he batted .234/.364/.429 (115 wRC+) in 100 games during his rookie season as the club’s regular second baseman and earned fifth place in Rookie of the Year voting, finishing ahead of then-teammate Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The good times continued for Biggio during the shortened 2020 season, as he appeared in 59 of the club’s 60 games and postd a career-best 122 wRC+.
Unfortunately, that’s the last time Biggio has found success in the majors as a regular player. Biggio’s offense cratered over the next two years as he slashed just .213/.320/.353 (91 wRC+) in a combined 597 trips to the plate. While he drew walks at an impressive 12.6% clip during that time, his strikeout rate crept up to 27.3% and the power he had flashed during the first two seasons of his career, when he combined for 24 homers in just 695 trips to the plate, cratered as he slugged just 13 between the 2021 and ’22 seasons combined. Late in the 2022 season, Biggio even found himself optioned to the minor leagues as Santiago Espinal took over the everyday second base job.
Things turned around slightly for Biggio last season, as he posted his first above-average offensive campaign in a full season since his rookie year. Although he was limited to just 338 trips to the plate as he served as a part time player for the club, Biggio hit a decent .235/.340/.370 (102 wRC+) in 111 games while splitting time between first base, second base, third base, and right field. While Biggio found success in that utility role last year, that didn’t last as he entered his age-29 season. In 44 games with Toronto this year, Biggio hit a paltry .200/.323/.291 as his strikeout rate soared to 32.1%, going over 30% for the first time in his career as a big leaguer.
The Blue Jays had evidently seen enough by the time early June rolled around and opted to designate him for assignment. He was traded to the Dodgers shortly thereafter but struggled with his new club as well, hitting a similar .192/.306/.329 in 88 trips to the plate across thirty games before they released him back in August. Biggio eventually found his way to the Giants on a minor league deal, though he did not appear at the big league level with the club before today’s swap and appeared in just 12 games for their Triple-A affiliate in Sacramento.
That’s led Biggio to his fourth organization of the 2024 campaign, where he becomes the latest player who was released earlier this year to be brought in as an injury replacement by the Braves. Atlanta has dealt with a number of injuries this year all throughout their roster, and as such have gotten creative by bringing in the castoffs of other teams such as outfielder Ramon Laureano, reliever John Brebbia as well as infielders Whit Merrifield and Gio Urshela. Now, Biggio is seemingly being brought in as the injury replacement for an injury replacement. It was revealed earlier today that Merrifield sustained a left foot fracture after fouling a ball off his foot last night, and while the club reportedly hopes that he’ll be able to return to action as soon as next weekend, injuries around their infield have left them to rely on questionable options like Luke Williams and Eli White to handle the keystone while he and Ozzie Albies are sidelined.
For all of Biggio’s struggles with the Blue Jays and Dodgers earlier this year, even that lackluster production would be a substantial upgrade for either Williams or White given that the pair have career wRC+ figures of 56 and 58 respectively in the big leagues. While Biggio has struck out at a clip that isn’t befitting of a regular role this year, particularly given his lack of power, his penchant for drawing walks gives him a solid floor of offensive production. He’s never walked less than 11% of the time in a season and sports a 13.6% walk rate for is career, good for 13th best in the majors since the start of his career.
Though Biggio won’t be able to participate in the postseason with Atlanta, it seems as though both Merrfield and Albies are expected to return before then, meaning there’s little downside to giving Biggio a bit of runway down the stretch while the club’s preferred options at the keystone are injured. Of course, as Biggio is currently on a minor league contract, he’ll need to be added to the club’s 40-man and active rosters before he can play for the club. Atlanta’s 40-man roster is full, so a corresponding move will be necessary if the club decides to add Biggio to their roster.
He was with the giants???
They like their walk-first players.
I didnt know the Dodgers fired him.
AA is playing 4D Hungry Hungry Hippos!
Someone is racking up frequent flyer miles Lately.
Just watched the bees and river cats and biggio needs to go to AA. 0-4 got walked twice and commuted 2 base running errors for outs. Ozuna could’ve manned infield better. That’s saying a lot.
Lonnie
Only the President or Governor can “commute” errors.
No biggie, or should we say Biggio.
LonnieB
I just watched somebody think they know more than the Atlanta front office because they watched one game.
@DodgersBro
The condition is called Dunning Kruger.
I’m an ATL fan and have watched biggio get shipped all over mlb all year. I hope he figures it out. He’s not looking great though.
I thought only players who hadn’t been on a 40-Man roster during the season could be traded post-deadline, however he has been so wouldn’t that make him ineligible
I’m guessing he wasn’t on the 4o man of the team that just signed him to that minors deal…
He was never on the giants 40 man
Biggio’s health screening by Braves –if you can walk into the room without crutches, you’re signed.
Dumpster diving.
Who exactly are teams suppose to pick up after the trade deadline? Which player would you consider not to be dumpster diving or are you just an imbecile?
They have Nacho in AAA who can handle multiple infiend positions, was that too difficult?
But seriously, name calling? Gotta love the childish people who get worked up over a baseball comment. “Mute” it is.
Yes if ANYONE DARES to disagree with ME than I will INVOKE my POWER to MUTE you because life is ALL ABOUT ME
stnmf
“Yes if ANYONE DARES to disagree with ME than I will INVOKE my POWER to MUTE”
I mean, they clearly said it was because of the name-calling.
Mb I didn’t read that I only saw the word mute
Flag my previous comment please
I get the concept, but the term “dumpster diving” needs to be put to rest.
letitbelowenstein, Are you a Janson Junk fan, by chance?
He’s a fan of Janson’s junk.
I know I am.
It’s reclaimed recycled material now instead of dumpster diving
Dumpster diving cannot be put to rest until it is agreed we throw the heart hands in said dumpster first.
What did Ryan Dempster do to you?
Chaim Bloom is jealous lol
I could have sworn a player had to not have played in the majors this season in order to be traded after the deadline.
Only players currently on a MLB 40 man roster can’t be traded.
Players that were on the teams 40 man at any point cannot be traded. Biggio was on a 40 man this year obviously, and even active on the 26, but he was not on the giants 40 man at any point, so they are allowed to trade him.
Russell Branyan was one of my favorite Indians to watch as a kid
Buddy Bell was mine.
Joe Charbonneau could open a beer bottle with his eye socket.
Wouldnt be out of the question that a former Jays scout now working for the Braves with ties to AA said he has something in the tank. Cavan would need a swing overhaul.
Trying to follow what you were saying gave me aids
I think there is some commas missing,,,,,,,,,,,,
I’m STD-free sorry.
Gigante siempre
Braves are not a playoff team. They need a hard reset on that roster.
They were projected to have the best record in MLB when the season started. Just yesterday, Kiley McDaniel at ESPN rated them as having the second best core after the Dodgers. What they need in 2025 is a return to health by their stars.
They honestly weren’t even that good when everybody was healthy apart from the first 25 games.
….”apart from the first 25 games on a Sunday away game in a month starting with the letter A playing in a stadium settled by an Anglo-Saxon”….
….sounds like an ESPN stat to me. C’mon, keep reaching, Saint Nick. Eventually you’ll find sumpin’ worth the characters.
They started the season w/a 19-7 record. Strider was gone after 2 games w/only 9 innings pitched. Sean Murphy was injured (oblique) in the 7th inning of the first game and was out until May 27th. Totally wrong that “everybody was healthy.”
Been roughly .500 for months now. Not sure what you’re getting at.
“Getting at” your assertion that “everybody was healthy” in those first 25 games. You’re right about their record. They haven’t been better than 12 games over .500 until a couple of days ago—and then only 13 games over.
I was replying to rundmc.
But to your point Nashville…injuries don’t tell the whole story. Olson, Riley, Murphy, Harris, Acuna when healthy, Albies, etc have all regressed dramatically offensively. Pitching has kept them afloat.
@Saint Nick: My bad. Apologies.
@Saint Nick — Murphy was out for a few months after G1. We haven’t seen what the whole line-up can do together…and Strider has been out after his 2nd game. When you consider that the 3 most impactful players of the 2024 team (Sale, Lopez, Ozuna) were almost-all non-factors of the historic 2023 team (Ozuna started poorly, but finished hot)…we really haven’t seen what this team can do.
Even slogging through the first few months, they were pretty good with stars going through slumps, but still impactful (and better than their replacements…).
@Saint Nick
To even be in contention for a play off spot is something of a miracle, but to say they were not good is rubbish because the pitching has been superb, and the Braves actually beat the Phillies 7-6 in the series, and to be fair it probably should have been 9-4 if Snitker wasn’t sleeping at times in the last series at Philadelphia.
Up until Spencer’s start yesterday,
Earned runs allowed by
Braves starters, last 25 games:
2, 0, 2, 2, 3, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0, 1, 3, 1, 3, 2, 0, 2, 2, 0
Of course, we know why a lot of those games were lost, and that is because they’re playing minus Acuna, Albies, Riley, and 7,8,9 in the order have not been good, and Murphy after his oblique injury just hasn’t been able to be consistent.. 2025 should be better, but we will wait and see.
Strider went down on April 13. Acuna on May 26. At that point Braves were 30-20 which ain’t that bad. All downhill from there.
Spot on. Not all players lost to injury are the same. Another team could have 4-5 guys go down without the same impact as losing Strider and Acuna.
Yeah, last time Acuna was injured like that they won the WS.
I don’t remember them losing a pitcher of the same quality as Strider when they won the WS. Are you suggesting including outliers, like winning despite losing Acuna, as a standard yardstick?
Weak little deals that Farhan likes to do. The G’s won’t win big until he’s gone.
JR
Right?
Can’t believe that he didn’t trade Biggie for a haul
Or make a huge splash here in September
Hopefully it’s a DFA for Luke Williams who cannot even hit .200 in MLB.
They have to keep him Mercenary. Zero infield depth w/out him. Alvarez is a disaster. Nobody in the minors they can consider calling up. They acquired Biggio because they have zero belief in their other mil infield options. Arcia, Urshela, Williams, and Biggio are all they have at the ML level right now. That’s only one infield bench piece w/Whitfield gone until Albies and Riley (hopefully) can return.
I like you Nashville. I been a Braves fan since 1994. Chipper was my favorite. Miss Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz. Kind of get spoiled watching 4 future HOF for years. Should have been 2-3 championships instead of 1 but Bobby Cox mismanaged a lot.
Like you too Mercenary. I’ve been a Braves fan since the day they moved to Atlanta in 1966 when I was 9 years old. Today is my 68th birthday, lol.
Happy Birthday Jeff,
All the best for today and the following years.
Thanks Fred!
Hopefully Biggio just stays in the minors as depth in case Merrifield can’t play through his injury or someone else gets hurt.
Somebody tell Smacky that Ozzie was “a viable SS in the minors” before he broke the tip of his elbow. He had to change his throwing motion. Smacky wouldn’t know that because he’s an ignorant troll. He’s got me blocked—–because he’s a gutless troll.
Should just cut Merrifield. Dude has a worse throwing motion than Ozzie and Ozzie’s is terrible. No idea how he was a viable SS in the minors.
Cavan racking up those air miles
Quite a journey tbh. From Ontario in Canada, to the West Coast in California and then the Bay area and now the East Coast in the South. Like a U2 North American tour.
Nick Deeds and his typos…
Where are all the normal hate-on houston crowd on this topic? After all, his dad was an Astro lifer, therefore should be high on those lists as eligible to be condemned by those twisted souls here who rag on about anything close to Houston related. Maybe most not bright enough to realize just who the younger Biggio is??
I am a Baltimore fan, but I always paid attention to the rest of the game. Biggio was one of my favorite non-Orioles players. I respected his game a lot. I was enamoured with a catcher that could steal a lot of bases, then he moved to 2B and that was probably the best thing that could have happened for him to prolong his career.
He was always a high OBP guy, and that is one thing Cavan seems to have inherited. Craig was never a big basher type, but he always hit a ton of doubles, and every once in awhile he’d pop 20 homers.
It is a shame Cavan doesn’t look like he will pan out. He’s too old to give more chances to. He’ll have to settle for a utility role and then perhaps get hot when he gets a chance at more playing time if an injury occurs.
This also reminds me of Cal Ripken’s son, Ryan. Ryan never really put it together in the minors and never even made it to the majors.
Kody and Coby Clemens too
Craig Biggio never cheated though, Long John Silver Fish Filet dolt.
Hope the Braves rethink 2nd base and trade Albies.
Put down the crack pipe
@bigcalcathey
I am nearly certain that there is much more than crack involved, as he wants to “trade Acuna”, and now he wants to “trade Albies”.
@Trade Acuna: The Braves have no mil options to replace Albies. If you think he’s so terrible, what do you think they could get back for him? Certainly won’t get a better player at his position in return. He’s made the top 100 ML players MLB list (until this season due to injury) for the past several years. Guess the pundits, scouts, FO personnel, and other ML players don’t have your “ability” to judge talent. Your screen name says it all.
Dude wants Braves to trade the whole roster.
OMG! Now there’s no longer any possibility for the Giants to call up Biggio for last 3 weeks of the season, to help them become a playoff team and carry them to a WS. This one hurts.
@goob – I was a bit surprised that they didn’t call him up Sept 1st as the extra position player. I think they realized that the one player hitting worse than him in Sacramento was already on the 40 man roster and went that direction instead.
The biggest surprise to me was that, as their season was winding down, they signed him as some sort of AAA reserve/depth piece to begin with. It certainly did them no harm but I just didn’t see a cogent reason for it.
It’s the Giants’ way. FZ loves him some transactions.
goob, Teams have to plan for what might happen, even if it defies the odds. And both the Giants and River Cats need to field a full team. If both teams were to have a 2B go down with injury, the Giants would call up a 2B from Sac, and the Cats would be down 2. Zaidi would then have to scramble to fill those spots, and I can guarantee, if that happened, the volume of criticism would increase greatly.
Except adding a new player means another player has to be removed. Teams just can’t stockpile a bunch of players in AAA. Either a player gets demoted, put on the IL or released. And Biggio played more in right field with Sacramento. The Giants love grabbing guys in hopes they pan out and they often do not. And they often move on very quickly on those they grab for another grab. The churn is annoying.
You might find the churn annoying, but then you’d be annoyed no matter what team you were a fan of, since every team does it.
And it’s sweet of you to be concerned for the last guy on the River Cats’ depth chart, who, at worst, was demoted to AA to make room for Biggio, but baseball is a business, and sentiment should not be part of the equation.
Totally agree Jean. And BTW, I don’t think I know any better than than any FO does about adding depth. They’re all constantly on the lookout, and there’s NO reason for any fan to be “annoyed” about the churn that continuously happens at the fringes – of EVERY franchise.
I just found the BIggio gambit, to be kind of “unusual” one and I decided to have a little sardonic fun with it. That’s an entirely different thing actually criticizing it. Cheers.
Dude, you said that Biggio was signed for insurance, as if there wasn’t already insurance in AAA. You cannot plan for the improbable by adding a player to a roster because the same number of players are on that roster. The scenario you gave makes no difference because the rules of rosters doesn’t allow a team to add another guy for “just in case” situations. If the scenario you gave played out, it would be the same with or without Biggio. That is not why he signed.
You think that churn makes sense yet you see the Biggio signing as unusual. You do realize churn happens all year long, right?
Yes. I think we’re all aware that the churn happens all season long, and that’s for almost every team in MLB. Certainly for all the most relevant teams. Any GM/PBO that isn’t looking to improve their roster, even in the most marginal aspects, is in dereliction of duty.
You’re totally ignoring the fact that players get injured. It isn’t improbable at all that 2 players, playing the same position go on the IL. All you need to do is to look at what happened this season when Bailey and Murphy both were lost to injury within days. Had the Giants needed to call someone up from AAA because of injury it would not have been Biggio. Biggio was added to be depth for Sacramento.
“…the rules of rosters doesn’t allow a team to add another guy for “just in case” situations.”
Well, obviously they do. Whatever the reason Biggio was added to the AAA roster, regardless of the reason. But MLB absolutely does allow teams to add players. In the instance of adding to the 40-man, a guy can be added when another player goes on, or is moved to, the 60 day IL. But that’s irrelevant, since Biggio was never on the 40-man. If Zaidi envisioned Biggio on the Giants he would’ve added him to the 40 man. He didn’t.
All the Giants needed to do was demote the last guy on the depth chart at AAA to AA, in order to make room for Biggio. And sending that bottom guy to AA probably allowed him to get more playing time than he had backing someone else up in Sacramento. Your post is just complete nonsense.
If AA and the Braves crew can fix the hole in Cavan’s swing that he has had since being originally called up, they will have a player, otherwise he is a healthy athletic ultility guy with fast hands at the plate with at hole in his swing that you can drive a truck through..
watching him play for the Dodgers he looks the part of an mlb player. you don’t figure him to be great offensively but dude kicked a lot of balls at third as well. he knows he’s hanging on to an mlb career by his fingertips now.
Seems like a lot to say about not very much.
It’s simply mind-boggling how MLB teams keep signing this guy. He’s barely a high school caliber player. Oh that’s right, his last name. Now I get it.
TiG
Above replacement level this year
On a roughly 1 WAR pace with a full season of playing time
A perfectly fine bench player
There go the WAR lovers. Immensely flawed geek stat. Cavan isn’t any wins above any replacement, except maybe my grandmother. Do they have a stat for that? WARG?
TiG
Sigh
You’re confused about the difference between a “hero” and Hiroo. That fight ended a decade ago
WAR works. Here’s the proof.
“team wins and WAR wins are strongly correlated (R-squared value of 0.86).”
beyondtheboxscore.com/2018/12/26/18155292/correlat…
Of course, to understand this your ability to comprehend math would have to be a bit above a middle school level, which, if it were, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Go troll somewhere else
No where is .234 a strong start
Lt
Nowhere is the ratio of hits to plate appearances minus walks, hit by pitches, sacrifices, etc while pretending that a single and home run are equal a good measure of hitting ability.
Hits, in just about all cases, require a positive proactive talented act by the hitter, whereas BB may certainly not, and HBP definitely requires no talent. So that’s why they’re not a part of BA. A single that drives in 2 runs is better than a solo HR, so in some cases a single is indeed better than a HR.
.234 stinks. Always has, always will.
TellItGoodbye, The problem with the debate over BA is the thinking that it’s all or nothing. Is BA useless? No. Does BA on it’s own say a lot about a hitter? No.
Is WAR useless? Absolutely not. Is it perfect? No, no stat is. But WAR is very effective, and better than BA, in giving an overall insight into value.
For example, The Mariners are dead last, behind the WSox, in team BA, but 12th in team WAR. They’re 3 games back from a WC berth,
The Guards are 22nd in BA, and 13th in WAR. They’re 20 over .500 and lead their division.
The Braves are 18th in BA, and 6th in WAR, They’re 22 games over .500. 1 game back from a WC spot.
The RSox are 5th in BA, and 10th in WAR. They’re 2 games over .500 and 3 games out of a WC berth.
The Mets and Twins are the only teams, currently in a playoff spot with a higher BA than WAR. But the delta, 5 for the Twins, and 2 for the Mets, is smaller than it is for the M’s (18), Guards (9), and Braves (12).
In general, the top teams in both WAR and BA are the better teams in MLB. But WAR is clearly the better stat at showing how just how good a team is? It’s the same for the individual player.
TiG
” requires no talent. So that’s why they’re not a part of BA”
Citation requested.
Meh. Forget that. We both know that you’re totally making that up.
“so in some cases a single is indeed better than a HR.”
So, a walk is also sometimes better than a single right? A bases loaded walk is much better than a bases empty single. But stupid batting average just pretends it doesn’t exist. And stupid bathing average thinks a grand slam is equal to a bases empty single.
Your poor logic eats itself.
Also, say a .234 average is bad. He was still an above average hitter since, you know, extra base hits and walks do count for something
Go away, troll
Naw, that’s really just a narrative. Truth is, all 30 teams tinker at edges and they do it all season long. I just thought the Biggio move was an unusual one. Again, whyever they got him, it cost them next to nothing and maybe they even ended up a few bucks ahead in the end. (Albeit, in MLB terms, just pocket change.)
Responding to Baseball77, but it dropped down here.
I dunno. Even if it was a short time, of the Dodgers couldn’t fix him, who can? I guess if anyone, the Braves are the best qualified.