The Blue Jays are set to begin spring training shortly and there really is only one spot available on the 26-man roster. That being said, there is an interesting case of how the club will use the trio of Whit Merrifield, Cavan Biggio and Santiago Espinal. Manager John Schneider will have some fascinating decisions to make.
If the postseason started tomorrow and everyone was healthy, Merrifield would probably be the starting second baseman, but is that how Schneider will run with the lineup all season?
Espinal will likely go into the season as the primary backup for both spots on the left side of the infield. In 2022, Bo Bichette started all but five games at shortstop, which will give Espinal maybe half a dozen starts as Bichette’s replacement. Matt Chapman, who should have won the American League Gold Glove, started in 151 of 162 games last year, which would give Espinal another dozen starts in the hot corner. This puts Espinal at 15-20 starts on the left side of infield.
As the 2023 season begins, Merrifield is best suited to be the fourth outfielder. He has started 185 career games patrolling the turf, while Biggio has started just 44 competitions and last year showed some struggles in chasing balls. However, as mentioned, the ideal lineup would be for Merrifield to start at second base by playoff time, so Schneider will likely want to keep him fresh at that position. This would mean that Biggio would likely get a lot of outfield starts, largely for the reason of getting Merrifield enough repeats at second base throughout the year.
The outfield will need plenty of relief as the trio of Daulton Varsho, George Springer and Kevin Kiermaier started 245 games out of a possible 486 in 2022, compared to even fewer the year before with 177 overall. Springer will see many games at designated hitter as the club need to protect him from injury, while Kiermaier is recovering from a serious injury that saw him play just 56 games last year. The best case scenario is that each of the outfield players will again start over 100 games each, but that still leaves close to 200 games unaccounted for.
A very rough estimate would mean that Merrifield gets equal time between second base and outfield, starting at around 140-150 games. Biggio can get 30-40 starts at second base with doubles in outfield, and Espinal gets about 50-60 starts at second base and a couple dozen on the left side of infield.
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Source: jaysjournal.com
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