Better know your Blue Jays 40-man: Bo Bichette

For a guy who has played a total of 75 MLB games, we know a lot about Bo Bichette.

In the 75 games, he has a .286/.334/.512 line with 15 home runs and 8 steals, good for a 3.2 bWAR (2.6 fWAR). Double that, and you have a heck of a season. MLB Network thinks so too, they have him #57 on their list of 100 top MLB players right now.

PECOTA has doubts, predicting a .264/.318/.448 line with 22 home runs in 144 games.

ZiPS is more optimistic, .286/.334/.512 with 23 home runs.

ZiPS figures him for 23 steals, PECOTA 13. 23 seems a lot to me, but it would get him to the 20/20 mark. It would be nice if he could cut out the mistakes on the basepaths. They have a full spring training to work with him on that.

In those 75 games, UZR has him at a 0.3/150, which seems fair (of course, his performance in the Wild Card likely would erase that .3). I think he’s been about an MLB average shortstop, which isn’t bad. Most of our guys aspire to average on defense. As much as I’d like a Gold Glove type at short, I think I’ll be happy with Bo’s bat.

I thought the team was likely to pick up a shortstop and move Bo to second, but they picked up a shortstop, Marcus Semien, and moved him to second. It should improve our infield defense.

His walk rate dropped last year, 3.9%, down from 6.6%. I’m not overly worried. I think he was a little anxious when he came back from injury. When a player misses a large portion of the season, there is a bit of a drive to make up for lost time. Let’s hope he’s a bit more selective this season.

Bo turns 23 in March, so there he’s got some time before he hits his prime.

I’m all for the team giving him a contract extension, buying out a couple of his free-agent years, but I can understand the team wanting to see if he can get through a season without missing time with injuries. Likely 14 years would be a bit more. And I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want to promise him $340 million. I hope that he has a good season, plays 150+ games, and that the Jays look to lock him down for a few years.

Last year we asked three questions:

• Will Bo be an All-Star in the next two seasons? 67% of us said yes. Since there wasn’t an All-Star game last year, there is a bit of pressure on him to make it this year.
• Will Bo be MVP this (2020) year? 35% said yes, but he wasn’t.
• Where would you bat Bo? 59% said second. 23% second leadoff. 13% said third. 4% said fifth. 2% said cleanup. Charlie agreed with the majority. Bo hit second in 22 games and leadoff in 7.
• Will Bo have a shampoo commercial this year? 77% said yes. I think Head and Shoulders is missing a good bet.