The Blue Jays Will Need to Address Their Infield Logjam Soon

While this is not going to be earth-shattering news for anyone, it’s something that needs to be said once again: the 2024 Toronto Blue Jays were MLB’s biggest disappointment.

Entering the season, the Blue Jays looked – at least on paper – to be a club capable of yet another playoff run. An offensive core made up of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette is nothing to scoff at, and a starting rotation that was one of baseball’s best in 2023 was set to return in full force.

Instead of putting together an even semi-competent unit, the Blue Jays fell flat on their faces. Bichette struggled through inconsistencies and injuries, the rotation couldn’t quite replicate their ’23 performances and the bullpen fully fell apart as the year rolled on.

It wasn’t pretty.

Looking ahead, both Guerrero and Bichette are entering what’s going to be their walk years, as each superstar is going to become an unrestricted free agent at the conclusion of the 2025 campaign. This puts an immense amount of pressure on the organization to field a winning team before their contention window closes.

The Blue Jays have a ton of items on their upcoming offseason to-do list, but there’s a lot more for them to do than just chase after Juan Soto (again) and rebuild their bullpen. Chief among those areas to address is their infield picture, which is unbelievably crammed as of right now.

Breaking Down the Blue Jays’ 2025 Infield Situation

When I say it’s crammed, that almost feels like a bit of an understatement. Looking strictly at players who are on the current 40-man roster, here’s who will be vying for playing time around the infield in 2025:

• Addison Barger

• Bo Bichette

• Ernie Clement

• Luis De Los Santos

• Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

• Spencer Horwitz

• Leo Jimenez

• Orelvis Martinez

• Davis Schneider

• Will Wagner

Not all of these players will be able to make the roster out of spring training. Some won’t need to compete, but there are quite a few of them who don’t have guaranteed roles heading into spring of 2025.

Who’s Locked In to a Spot?

Right off the bat, both Bichette and Guerrero are good to go.

Despite the fact that Bichette had easily his worst season as a big leaguer, he’s still a two-time All-Star and the AL leaders in hits in two of the past four years. 2024 was an injury-plagued season for him, but even when he was healthy, he managed to hit just four home runs while posting a .225 average and 71 OPS+. More on him in a moment.

Guerrero, 25, silenced all of the haters who thought he’d never return to his 2021 MVP-caliber form. He hit 30 home runs while driving in 103 runs, posted a career-high .323 batting average and had a 166 OPS+, just one point lower than his outstanding season in ’21 when he finished runner up to Shohei Ohtani in the MVP voting.

Who Has a Strong Case to Make the Roster?

Those two are the only locks to make the Opening Day roster.

Outside of them, Horwitz, Clement and Jimenez did the most to warrant consideration over the others.

Horwitz is an under-the-radar Rookie of the Year candidate, even if he won’t win the award. He hit 12 home runs in 97 games while sporting an OPS of .790, but he needs to find a defensive home if he’s going to stick around long-term. Horwitz took up second base this year and didn’t look comfortable at the position at all. His primary position is first base, but Guerrero is there right now.

Then there’s Clement and Jimenez, a pair of strong defenders who impressed with the bat at times as well. Clement has positional versatility while Jimenez is younger and has more upside in the long run. We’ll get more into their cases in a bit, because their situation(s) is more complicated than the others.

Outside of this trio, Wagner impressed the most in his 24-game cameo. The son of future Hall of Famer Billy Wagner, Will recorded eight extra-base hits along with 11 RBI and a .788 OPS in his time at the game’s highest level. He showed off a knack for recording slap-singles where defenders were absent and managed to find his way on base in multiple different ways.

That leaves us with two locks and four players who did enough to stand out amongst the competition.

Who Has Work to do?

Barger expanded his versatility by taking on assignments in the outfield corners. This helps him out for sure, as the Blue Jays are known fans of flexibility and the ability to play multiple positions. His throwing arm is one of the strongest in the system, but the Jays are going to have to cross their fingers that his bat comes around at the big-league level. He’s not guaranteed a spot on the Opening Day roster, but he’s also not undeserving.

Martinez is a top prospect of the Blue Jays who had only just made his big league debut when he got hit with a crippling 80-game PED suspension. He’s got light-tower power and can also bounce around the infield, but the fact of the matter is that the suspension set him back at an inopportune time. There’s not exactly a good time to get hit with a suspension, but he had just earned his first shot in the big leagues, now he is set back a few steps.

Last year, Schneider burst onto the scene and seemed to be a long-term piece in the making. His 1.008 OPS through 35 games in the second-half of 2023 was more than enough to have Blue Jays fans convinced that he was legit.

Then 2024 hit, and the wheels fell off. Schneider never got demoted to Triple-A, but he also never quite figured things out in The Show. All told, he hit 13 home runs and drove in 46, but he also hit .191 with a .625 OPS and OPS+ that dipped all the way down to 78. Striking out nearly 32% of the time while playing slightly below-average defense at multiple positions is not doing him any favors.

Don’t get it twisted, though: he’s nowhere near out of the running. A strong spring and first month or two of the ’25 regular season will go a very long way.

Finally, there’s De Los Santos, who is essentially organizational filler. He finally made his big league debut after a long and winding road through the Blue Jays’ farm system, but he’s not a lock to even stick around on the club’s 40-man roster until the first day of spring training.

The Bo Bichette Dilemma

Now that we’ve established the group of players we’re dealing with, it’s time to dive into some of the specific cases and where this complicated situation becomes even more, well … complicated.

Starting at the top, Bichette’s status on this team remains very much up in the air. He’s not far removed from being one of the co-faces of the franchise and remains well liked by the Blue Jays fanbase, but that only goes so far.

The fact that Bichette missed so much time with injuries and failed to perform at even an average clip when he did take the field is more than a little bit concerning. Then when you take into consideration that he physically looked disinterested on the field and made some questionable comments down the stretch (that he later walked back on in an attempt to save face), there are definitely some question marks here.

To put it simply: if Bichette doesn’t get traded this winter, he’s the starting shortstop in 2025. That makes him a lock for the Opening Day roster … if he remains on the team, period.

There are going to be a ton of teams that think they’re the ones that can “fix” Bichette, so they’ll try and trade for him this offseason. Many around the industry believe that just because Bichette expressed interest in staying automatically means the Blue Jays will keep him around.

The main thing leaving these conversations open-ended is the fact that Bichette’s value will never be higher than it is right now. Sure, he had a bad year in 2024, but he’s still controllable for an entire season, so trading him before the season starts should result in a bigger return package than it would at the deadline, when the acquiring team would only have him for a brief period of time.

Yes, the Blue Jays want to make one more run at contention, but that doesn’t mean that Bichette needs to be a part of the equation. Guerrero took some massive steps toward earning that long-term contract, so he could easily be extended and the Blue Jays could look to a player like Ha-Seong Kim on the free-agent market or even Clement to take over at shortstop without missing much of a beat.

But still, I just don’t see Bichette getting traded. It’s been made clear time and time again that Ross Atkins and Co. would rather hang onto their players longer than is necessary rather than risk mistakenly sending them packing too early. Bichette will stick around, but he’s going to have to find himself this offseason, or there are going to be some tough conversations being had around the 2025 trade deadline.

Lack of Options Make For Tough Decisions

Outside of the Bichette situation, there’s also a potentially awkward one coming up surrounding Clement and Jimenez. Both players will be out of minor league options next season, so neither of them can be sent to Triple-A without first passing through waivers.

Their respective performances in 2024 all but guaranteed that they would not make it through waivers unclaimed. This means that they’re either both going to have to make the roster out of camp, or one’s going to have to be exposed to all 29 other teams around the league, resulting in them moving on.

Clement, 28, is a bit of a late bloomer but his performance in 29 games last year and 139 this year turned him into a fan favorite around Toronto. He has a blast on the field and in the dugout all while playing strong defense all around the infield and sporting some surprising power that came out of nowhere.

He hit 12 home runs while recording 21 doubles, stealing 12 bases and posting an OPS+ of 95, which is just below league-average, but is better than he had performed in the past. This was also his first full season in the big leagues, as he made 70 more appearances than his previous career-high back in 2022.

The versatility and vibes he brings to this team make it tough for the Blue Jays to move on, so they won’t. That leaves us with Jimenez, who has made his fair share of Blue Jays top prospect lists for years now.

The 23-year-old got a ton of playing time at shortstop in Bichette’s absence, and he performed well. He recorded 15 extra-base hits while boasting a 97 OPS+ through 63 games. His bat is still a bit of a work in progress, but he’s shown glimpses of potential throughout his minor league career and in his first taste of big-league action in 2024.

My prediction here is that both players make the club out of spring training.

The Verdict

The toughest decisions are going to be with how the Blue Jays handle Clement and Jimenez, but it’s hard to see either of them being DFA’d in favor of another player from the list.

Since the Blue Jays will keep a backup catcher and a backup outfielder on their bench, this leaves room for a player at each of the four infield positions, one at DH and then a maximum of two riding the bench.

The starting infield will be Guerrero, Wagner, Bichette, Clement from first to third. I think Horwitz will be kept around as a DH-1B hybrid and the bench will consist of Barger and Jimenez, both of whom will play multiple positions and get a lot of playing time around the diamond.

This leaves Schneider, Martinez and De Los Santos as the three players on the outside looking in. Schneider needs to find his way again, but the Blue Jays can’t afford to have him try and get there in the big leagues, at least not right away.

Martinez will need to earn his playing time, but more than anything he needs to play every single day. Since the Blue Jays likely won’t be able to guarantee that early on, he’d be best suited playing every day for the Buffalo Bisons down in Triple-A to start the year.

A trade could always open up a roster spot for him in the big leagues, so he could platoon at second base with Wagner and form a strong tandem there.