The Blue Jays spent a good chunk of the season chasing answers around the infield, but the strongest one may have been sitting in Buffalo the whole time.
Josh Kasevich just put together the kind of year that makes a front office look twice. He was named the Buffalo Bisons’ 2026 Stan Barron Most Valuable Player after staying healthy for a full season, shaking off the injury issues that derailed his 2025 campaign, and becoming the most reliable bat in the lineup. He led the team in games played, batting average, hits, runs scored and total bases, and he also picked up the Jimmy Griffin Hometown Hero Award for what he did offensively at Sahlen Field.
That production came after a spring that made him look very much like a player on the verge. In 20 Grapefruit League games, Kasevich hit .306/.376/.500 with a 7.5% walk rate and a 5.0% strikeout rate.
With nearly half the team tied up at the World Baseball Classic, he got more reps than he probably would have otherwise, and he made them count. The 2022 second-round pick was clearly on Toronto’s radar and seemed like a real call-up candidate if the big club ran into trouble.
But the trouble never turned into a Kasevich promotion. Toronto kept reaching elsewhere.
When the Blue Jays wanted more infield depth in April, they traded for Lenyn Sosa. Later in the year, they added Luis Urías from the Arizona Diamondbacks for cash. At the deadline, they made another unexpected move, sending Adam Macko to the Texas Rangers in a deal that brought back Josh Smith and Josh Stephan.
The club also gave looks to other young players, including Charles McAdoo, Yohendrick Piñango and Sean Keys. Those choices didn’t blow up in their face, but they did push Kasevich farther down the line.
There was a pretty obvious reason for that, though. His best defensive spots were shortstop, second base and third base, and Toronto wasn’t exactly unstable at those positions. Andrés Giménez, Kazuma Okamoto and Ernie Clement were mostly healthy, so the pathway to regular big-league playing time just wasn’t there.
And if the plan was simply to bring Kasevich up to sit around on the bench a few times a week, that probably wouldn’t have done him much good anyway. After an injury-interrupted 2025, the Blue Jays could reasonably point to the value of letting him play every day in Triple-A instead.
From that angle, the season worked out the way they wanted. Kasevich rebuilt his stock, logged a full healthy year and earned Buffalo’s top individual honor. He finished at .285/.362/.367 with four home runs, 76 runs scored, a 9.6% walk rate, an 11.5% strikeout rate and a 101 wRC+.
Even so, his award only sharpens the question of what Toronto missed.
That’s especially true with Brett Bateman now in the picture. The Blue Jays added Bateman for Kevin Gausman at the trade deadline, and he’s been exactly the kind of table-setter that can change the feel of a lineup.
Through his first 34 games as of Sept. 18, Bateman was hitting .333/.400/.428 with 46 hits, two home runs and a .419 BABIP.
His sprint speed ranked in the 84th percentile, and Toronto’s offense got rolling when he was moved into the top of the order.
Bateman and Kasevich don’t match perfectly, but the overlap is hard to ignore. Kasevich posted similar batting-value numbers in Triple-A, and the Blue Jays could have used another hitter who works counts, puts balls in play and keeps the line moving. Whether that would have translated the same way in Toronto is another story, since there would have been a learning curve in the majors.
Still, it’s tough not to wonder what would have happened if the Blue Jays had given him even a short look. Instead, they spent the year cycling through outside depth and fringe fits while one of their own former top picks quietly turned into the best position player on their Triple-A team.
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