Cavan Biggio landing with Dodgers rival just brought up unsettling trade reminder

Last June, the Dodgers made a trade with the Blue Jays to acquire former Rookie of the Year candidate Cavan Biggio, with clear hopes to rehabilitate him. In the seasons following his rookie campaign and a successful, abbreviated 2020, he batted .221 with a .687 OPS in Toronto.

The Dodgers sent 2019 fourth-rounder Braydon Fisher to the Blue Jays in return. He struggled in Triple-A Oklahoma City before the trade, and it was hard for Dodgers fans to think too hard about what they might be losing when the bench and bottom of the lineup desperately needed a spark. Getting Biggio was kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel, but Miguel Vargas clearly just wasn't working out at the time.

Neither did Biggio. He ended up playing in 30 games in LA, batted .192 with a .635 OPS, and was DFA'ed on Aug. 5. He signed a minor league deal with the Giants, and then was traded to the Braves for cash, where he finished out the season before being removed from the roster and optioned to Triple-A. He rejected the assignment, signed a minor-league deal with the Royals for 2025, and then they DFA'ed him on July 25 after he hit .174/.543 in the majors.

On Wednesday, Biggio signed another minor league deal with another hopeless cause, the AL West's fourth-place Angels. Meanwhile, Fisher has become a staple of the surging Blue Jays' bullpen, and he has a 2.36 ERA in 34 1/3 innings.

Cavan Biggio landing with another bottom feeder team is an uncomfortable reminder that Dodgers gave up a viable bullpen asset

Fisher's 6.94 ERA in 11 2/3 innings for the Comets last season probably made the Dodgers all too willing to trade him, and to be fair, he didn't immediately get better upon being traded to Toronto. He pitched 18 1/3 more innings in Triple-A Buffalo for a 6.38 ERA. But the Blue Jays seemed to think he'd unlocked something in his first 11 1/3 innings this year, and they called him up on May 11. If you don't count a rather ugly start against the Athletics on May 31 (his only start of the year) when he gave up five runs, he has a 1.09 ERA out of Toronto's bullpen.

A guy like that would probably be a huge asset to the Dodgers' hurting bullpen right now. Instead, the Dodgers got Biggio for 30 games, when he continued to be a below-replacement player. And since then, he's been signing minor-league deal after minor-league deal to try to keep his career alive.

You never really know how prospects are going to pan out, sure, but Biggio's signing is a painful reminder of what could've been.