He's coming off his second MVP-quality season in the last three years, so it's safe to say that free agent shortstop/second baseman Marcus Semien is in for a massive nine-figure payday this offseason. Let's examine his top landing spots for 2022.
The Toronto Blue Jays took a chance on Semien after a bust of a 2020 season for him, handing the infielder a 1-yr, $18 million dollar contract. To say it worked out for both sides would be a huge understatement.
Semien blasted a career-high 45 home runs, far surpassing the 33 he hit in his 2019 third-place MVP showing. He also topped 100 RBIs for the first time, with 102, while scoring 115 runs and adding 15 stolen bases to boot. His 7.2 WAR (Baseball-Reference) was 4th in all of baseball. He's clearly in line for another top 3 MVP finish.
There are two obvious front-runners in the race to sign Semien, with a third team lurking in the weeds.
1. Toronto Blue Jays
Semien absolutely loved his time in Toronto (and Dunedin, and Buffalo), and bonded well with all his teammates. The results were obvious. After the season, he called his time in Toronto "unbelievable"; he loved the fans, credited the team with making a big trade deadline acquisition, and said they built a real "culture" and became "the best team in baseball, it was just a tick too late."
The only caveat here is his public statement, "I still see myself as a shortstop." Semien had played short his entire career, until shifting to 2B with the Jays to allow Bo Bichette—a pretty good player himself—to continue to develop at SS.
2. San Francisco Giants
Semien has said his "wife and three kids are everything" to him. Semien is from San Francisco. He and the aforementioned wife and kids have a home there. After spending the previous six years of his career "at home", across the bay, in Oakland, it's been rumored that he really wants to return to Northern California. And the Giants are ready to spend big to maintain their spot at the top of the NL West.
But there is one little drawback, and once again, it comes back to that "I still see myself as a shortstop" idea. The Giants just re-signed their own pretty good shortstop Brandon Crawford (coming off a career year) to a two-year extension. He's been a fixture at short in San Francisco for 11 years.
Does returning home mean enough to Semien that he'd settle for second base again?
3. Seattle Mariners
This is where the Mariners can swoop in and steal the prize. The M's are a team on the rise, and are not too far from his home in Northern California. They have made it clear they're ready to spend big this offseason to continue their ascension.
Seattle has said that J.P. Crawford will be its shortstop going forward, but you can envision a world where that could change, with the chance to bring in an MVP candidate.
Dark-horse players for Semien like Texas, Minnesota and Detroit can offer full-time shortstop jobs, but their lack of favorable geography or past histories with him will mean they'd have to far out-pay the favorites.
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