Another Biggio makes the majors
TORONTO — Big lights, big city, big leagues.
And big tower.
Corny as it may sound, the CN Tower shone like a beacon in the distance for Cavan Biggio as he pointed his pickup truck for Toronto on Thursday night with Thomas Pannone riding shotgun.
Saw the slender edifice from an hour away, on the QEW, and aimed toward it.
“First time I came to the city of Toronto was in January for Winter Fest. It’s beautiful. I never really heard about Toronto that much because I lived in the States my whole life. It’s kind of breathtaking.
“Me and Pannone were joking about it, how you could finally see the tower and that’s where we’re going. Like, we’ve got to go to that tower. It’s pretty cool.
“It didn’t really hit me until I saw the skyline and I pulled up to the stadium.”
Biggio, who’d been marinating at Class AAA Buffalo while Jays Nation pined for the 24-year-old to be called up by the Blue Jays, finally got the call, making his debut in the majors during Friday’s 6-3 loss to the San Diego Padres, playing second base.
Feels like we’ve been waiting an awful long time for the No. 9-ranked organizational prospect, the other son of an Astros Hall of Famer, to get here. Doubtless felt longer for him, even as Biggio put up scrumptious numbers with the Bisons (.307 average, .949 OPS). What the heck were they waiting for, with Biggio such an attractive ornament in the minors, part of that much-ballyhooed Next Gen complement of future Jays.
“You always want to be in the big leagues and you dream of it,” Biggio told reporters Friday afternoon during a poised scrum with reporters in the dugout at the Rogers Centre, evincing scarcely a hint of nerves, poised on the edge of all his hopes and aspirations.
“When it becomes a possibility, you obviously think about it. And when it happens, you don’t know what it’s going to be like, you can’t really picture it. It just kind of caught me off guard.’’
The whirlwind day, Thursday, began with a Bisons road game in Rochester, scheduled for 11 a.m. but didn’t begin until 2 p.m. Afterward, hitting coach Corey Hart called him into the office.
“I walked in, what do you want, are you going to show me something or what?” Biggio asked.
Biggio noticed Buffalo manager Bobby Meacham standing at the connecting door to his office. “He said, ‘close the door.’ That’s kind of when I knew what was going on.”
Message delivered: You’re going to The Show, kid. Though Biggio is hardly a kid.
Toronto-bound, along with pitcher Pannone and infieldercum-outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who’d been demoted — had developed the yips, throwing from second base to first — to Buffalo on April 15 to get his groove back. Primarily an infielder with Toronto last season, Gurriel was deployed to left field in his first return engagement, and homered in his second atbat.
Biggio, still half-dressed because he’d been headed for the showers, went around the locker room hugging his teammates. Arranged for a car service to drive him to Buffalo, then got behind the wheel of his Ford F150.
Claimed he was “shocked” when Meacham imparted the glad tidings, although everybody knew Biggio would be the next fresh face summoned from the minors. The call-up had been internally discussed over the past two weeks, said general manager Ross Atkins.
“He has really personified a lot of things that we’re looking for in a teammate and a person,” Atkins said. “How he treats people, how he goes about every day. How much better he’s gotten from the day he joined the organization.”
But why now, this moment? Or maybe the club just had a bellyful of all the hands on deck, with more rout losses to the Red Sox in Toronto’s most recent homestand.
“It’s a combination of all the things he’s improving on — offensively, defensively … baserunning,” Atkins said. “Then performance and position fit.”
Meaning an attempt to fairly allot playing time, balanced with those who remain here — after Billy McKinney and Richard Urena were packed off to Buffalo. Make no mistake, however; Biggio and Gurriel aren’t here to sit. Which means Jonathan Davis — one of Toronto’s few genuine outfielders — won’t see his name on the lineup as often. Nor might the likes of Brandon Drury and Eric Sogard, as the swell of change sweeps across the roster.
This outline more closely adheres to the regime-change rebuild that was set in motion late last season. Many of the moving parts still need to be sorted out. But the likes of Biggio need to show what they’ve got, if that minor-league body of work has been misleading. Ditto, eventually, when the broken hand is healed for Bo Bichette.
Unfortunately for the parent club, the cupboard is mostly bare of outfielders in the minors fit to step up, step in. The organization has been far too analytics-fixated on “versatility’’ — players capable of assuming multiple positional roles.
In any event, that credo has worked to Biggio’s advantage. Envisioned as a super-utility, with second base his primary spot, he has been posted all around the infield and, this season at Class AAA, also (like Gurriel) got a half-dozen games in the outfield.
“It was something that I was really open to from the get-go,” said Biggio, of his multiple baseball personalities, before an 0-for-3 debut with a pair of strikeouts. “I saw a lot of opportunity in it, when you talk about moving through the system. Being glued to one position, it limits yourself, I think. When they brought it to my attention, I was all for it.”
Jays manager Charlie Montoyo expects Biggio to play mostly at second but also right field, and third when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. needs a day off or has drawn the DH assignment, even first on occasion. The skipper professes no concerns about a jerrymandered outfield with only Randal Grichuk as an experienced fulltime occupant.
“Yeah, but they were doing it in Triple-A already,’’ Montoyo said about Gurriel and Biggio taking their gloves to the outfield expanse. “Of course they’re not outfielders, they’re infielders. But they’re fine, from the report that I got. … I haven’t seen Gurriel play in the outfield, to tell you the truth.”
Oh yeah, between all the hectic running around Thursday, Biggio made time to inform his family, calling dad, Craig Biggio, mom, sister, brother, grandparents, childhood friends.
All of them made it to the ballpark Friday night.
Because there’s only one first time, one big-league baptism.
For Cavan Biggio: May 24, 2019. You made it.