The Royals optioned infielder Cavan Biggio to the minor leagues following the club’s game against the Twins today, according to a report from Anne Rogers of MLB.com. As a player with five years of service time, Biggio has the ability to refuse an optional assignment, and Rogers reports that he’ll be able to decide between accepting the optional assignment or electing free agency in the coming days. It’s unclear what the corresponding move for Biggio’s departure from the active roster will be.
It’s unusual to see a player consent to an optional assignment when they have the requisite service time necessary to reject one. That’s not to say it’s completely unheard of, with veteran first baseman Jose Abreu’s decision to consent to being optioned after struggling badly with the Astros early last year standing out as one of the more memorable recent examples, but it would hardly be a surprise if Biggio decided to elect free agency rather than stick with the Royals. On the other hand, Biggio may be limited to exclusively minor league deals in free agency and would therefore lose the benefits of being on the 40-man roster that he would retain should he accept an optional assignment from the Royals.
Son of Hall of Famer Craig Biggio and a veteran of seven MLB seasons in his own right, the younger Biggio got off to a hot start early in his career with a .240/.368/.430 slash line (good for a wRC+ of 118) across his first two seasons in the majors. That was enough to earn him down-ballot Rookie of the Year consideration in the AL during the 2019 season and make him the club’s on-paper everyday third baseman headed into the 2021 season. Unfortunately, things started to unravel from there. Biggio hit just .224/.322/.356 with a wRC+ of 84 that eventually got him pushed into a part-time role that year. He wouldn’t recapture his everyday job with the Blue Jays ever again, although his .220/.330/.361 (100 wRC+) performance over the next two seasons was enough to make him a viable bench player in a utility role.
While Biggio seemed to have carved out a solid part-time role for himself with Toronto, that changed during the 2024 campaign. He struggled badly across 44 games with the club, hitting just .200/.323/.291 with a wRC+ of 86, and that step backwards in conjunction with the Blue Jays’ losing record was enough to convince Toronto brass to pull the plug on a player who was once considered to be part of their core alongside Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette. Biggio spent the rest of the season bouncing between the Dodgers, Giants, and Braves organizations and finished the year with a .197/.314/.303 (84 wRC+) slash line in the big leagues across 78 games.
Biggio elected free agency back in November after being cut loose by the Braves and eventually caught on with the Royals on a minor league deal back in January. He showed out enough in Spring Training to make the club’s Opening Day roster but has performed poorly in a part-time role during the regular season with a slash line of just .176/.300/.250. His 61 wRC+ this year is the 35th-worst figure in the majors among players with at least 80 plate appearances, and for a Royals club that’s tied for third from the bottom in the majors in runs scored his bat is clearly not producing enough to justify his roster spot.
MJ Melendez, Joey Wiemer, Tyler Gentry, and Tyler Tolbert are all on the 40-man roster already as potential replacements for Biggio on the active roster. Anyone else would require selecting a contract to the roster, though it should be noted that the Royals have space on their 40-man so no corresponding move would be necessary to make that sort of addition. Rogers notes that outfielder John Rave was out of the lineup at Triple-A Omaha today, potentially suggesting he could be an option to be called up to the majors, while Nelson Velazquez, Nick Pratto, and Jordan Groshans are all non-roster players with big league experience who could theoretically be called upon.
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