Not every rookie is going to make the major leagues look as easy as Bo Bichette. Most will go through some early struggles and require time to adjust. One of those players is Cavan Biggio.

The Blue Jays’ starting second baseman has been having a rough go since the all-star break. His numbers have been dropping across the board for the last several weeks and there have been occasions when he has appeared lost at the plate.

The hard contact, which he became known for in the minor leagues, all but disappeared and he entered play Wednesday night with just five extra-base hits in August to go along with a .610 OPS. The prolonged struggles raised some red flags, but the Blue Jays don’t seem remotely concerned and it’s not that difficult to figure out why.

If you’re going to bet on a player to exceed expectations, it should be a guy like Biggio. A player who has an exceptional eye at the plate, knows how to work a count and can generate a lot of power. Plate discipline is a difficult skill to teach. Most players either have it or they don’t and Biggio already appears to possess some of the best eyes in the game.

It’s a testament to his patience that he went into Wednesday’s series finale against the Atlanta Braves batting just .208 and yet has a .335 on-base percentage, which ranks fourth among the current Blue Jays regulars. Hits come and go, depending on whether a player is on a hot or cold streak, but the one constant which should never slump is discipline.

Almost all the elite teams have at least one or two of these players. They might not be the biggest stars on the roster, but they are the glue which holds everything together. The New York Yankees have Brett Gardner, the Houston Astros have Alex Bregman, the Tampa Bay Rays have Austin Meadows and the Boston Red Sox have an entire lineup that might fit this mould.

Biggio currently leads all Blue Jays hitters with 4.36 pitches per plate appearance. That’s a good thing but it doesn’t mean that Biggio is perfect, or anywhere close to it, quite yet. Toronto loves the patience but feels he might have been waiting a bit too much of late. Pitches off the plate are the ones the Blue Jays want Biggio to stay away from, not the centre-cut fastballs which sail by when he’s looking for something else.

That’s why the Blue Jays are trying to convince Biggio to be a bit more aggressive. They don’t want him to lose the elite-level eye, but he needs to start putting the ball in play on a more regular basis. Toronto will have to make sure he doesn’t go too far in the other direction, but a couple of more swings per game likely would do him some good.

“I think just being more aggressive, especially with the heater early on,” Biggio said of his new approach after going 1-for-4 with a double in Wednesday’s 9-4 loss to the Braves. “I was definitely too passive the past couple of weeks. I think the past two games I’ve just kind of ... hit the heater, the first one I see in the zone.”

“It is a fine balance, because now you’re facing better pitching,” Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said when asked about Biggio. “You can be patient, but if you get in the hole, it’s tough to get out if it. They’re going to make good pitches.”

That’s one of the reasons why Montoyo pulled Biggio aside prior to Tuesday night’s game against Atlanta. He wanted to give his young infielder a vote of confidence and make sure the Texas native felt comfortable enough to let it fly at the plate. Biggio responded to the pre-game chat with his first multi-hit game since Aug. 16.

The most positive sign for Biggio wasn’t the number of hits against Atlanta; it was how hard he made contact with the ball. In the first inning, Biggio hit a 102.3-mph single off Braves Cy Young contender Mike Soroka. Two innings later, Biggio connected again, this time it was a 96.4-mph single. His hardest batted ball of the night came in the fifth on a 102.6-mph line-out. That’s the type of consistency Toronto is looking for.

“Pitchers in the big leagues adjust to what you do,” Montoyo said. “Lately, it seemed like he was taking a lot of fastballs right down the middle. I said, ‘You better be ready for those.’ He was in between. Early on he was swinging at fastballs, and then the league started making an adjustment, and started throwing him breaking pitches and changeups. He was in between, taking fastballs and swinging at breaking balls. On Tuesday he was ready for the fastball so that was an adjustment he made.”

There’s a lot to like about Biggio’s game, but it’s worth noting he’s not on quite the same level as can’t-miss prospects such as Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Biggio, despite being the son of a hall of famer, has been forced to earn it every step of the way. Even dating back to the 2016 MLB draft, Biggio wasn’t considered to be that big a deal as he fell all the way to the fifth round.

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Biggio’s numbers in Class-A Lansing were decent enough but he struggled for Dunedin with a .705 OPS in 2017. It wasn’t until the following year that Biggio’s standing within the organization really started to skyrocket. He posted 23 homers with an .887 OPS, with similarly strong numbers the following year for Buffalo. That’s when he started being included on a lot of the lists for top prospects.

Not every prospect is going to work out and there will be no shortage of disappointments during this rebuild. It’s something every club must experience, but Biggio is one of the supposed risks that teams should feel safe betting on all day. Biggio might not be the star but there’s a good chance his skillset will turn into exactly what this emerging team needs.