Toronto Blue Jays: How the kids stack up against their fathers
The Toronto Blue Jays currently employ one of the youngest rosters in all of baseball. With some of the star prospects on the squad having fathers that played the game, how are the kids doing in their first season compared to their parents?
The Toronto Blue Jays are in full rebuild mode this year, calling up a healthy amount of their top position prospects in the farm system to the major league squad.
The first prospects the front office called upon were catcher Danny Jansen and first baseman, Rowdy Tellez. Jansen was given the reigns to the job after the Blue Jays traded Russell Martin to the Los Angelos Dodgers and Tellez was able to get some MLB action with Kendrys Morales being sent to Oakland. While both did play in 2018 through a September cup of coffee, it was the 2019 season that both players started to prove their worth by playing in more games.
Top prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr. would eventually be called up to the team in late April. He would have started the season in Toronto if he had not suffered an oblique injury in spring training and if the Blue Jays hadn’t used loopholes in the Collective Bargaining Agreement for an extra year of control.
Vladdy would then be followed by second baseman Cavan Biggio, who was absolutely demolishing the ball in AAA. He was able to find playing time with second baseman Devon Travis going down with another knee injury before the season started and then with infielders Eric Sogard and Freddy Galvis being sent on their merry way around late July/Early August.
The last position prospect Blue Jays fans were hoping to see was Bo Bichette, the talented shortstop that had to wait until Sogard and Galvis were dealt until he could find playing time at the MLB level. He also suffered a broken hand while in AAA early in the season, delaying any potential debut while he took roughly one month to recover.
The odd thing with some of the top Toronto Blue Jays prospects is that they all have one thing in common: baseball is a family sport.
The combination of Biggio, Guerrero Jr., and Bichette all had fathers who played baseball, and all these prospects spent the first few years of their life around the diamond.
Craig Biggio and Vladimir Guerrero Sr. are now in the Hall of Fame, and while Dante Bichette is not in the HOF, his career .299 AVG and his 1141 RBIs are not something to scoff at.
This begs the questions, “how are the Blue Jays prospects fairing in their rookie season compared to their father’s rookie season in the big leagues?”
Well, look no further.