Former A’s shortstop Marcus Semien agrees to sign with Blue Jays

Former A’s shortstop Marcus Semien is in agreement to sign a one-year deal with the Toronto Blue Jays, The Chronicle confirmed.

Semien, who grew up in El Cerrito and went to Cal, played the last six seasons with the A’s and finished third in AL MVP voting in 2019. His one-year deal with Toronto is for $18 million, ESPN reported.

That means Semien, 30, signed elsewhere for slightly less than he might have received had the A’s extended him the one-year, $18.9 million qualifying offer for 2021. It was not immediately clear whether the A’s made a different formal offer to Semien after he became a free agent.

Traded to Oakland by the White Sox after the 2014 season, Semien became the A’s everyday shortstop in 2015 and made significant defensive strides at the position in following seasons. He posted career-bests in most offensive categories in 2019, including average (.285), home runs (33), RBIs (92), runs (123) and on-base-plus-slugging (.892), finishing behind Mike Trout and Houston’s Alex Bregman in MVP voting.

Semien hit .223 with seven homers in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season but was still seen as arguably the top free-agent shortstop available this winter. According to reports, Toronto’s plan is to play Semien primarily at second base.

It’s unclear how the A’s plan to replace Semien at shortstop. Chad Pinder and Vimael Machin, both returning from last year’s major-league roster, have some experience at shortstop while prospects Nick Allen and Logan Davidson could likely use more minor-league time.

Matt Kawahara covers the A’s and Susan Slusser covers the Giants for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: mkawahara@sfchronicle.com, sslusser@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matthewkawahara, @susanslusser