The Toronto Blue Jays are in no position to spend much time daydreaming, not with their playoff push hanging on every night in the AL Wild Card race. But Bo Bichette keeps making that hard.
Since the trade deadline, the New York Mets’ third baseman hasn’t been a huge national storyline. The Mets are out of it, and Bichette also stumbled out of the gate after arriving in Queens. Lately, though, he’s looked a lot more like the player Blue Jays fans remember.
That’s exactly why his absence feels so sharp in Toronto right now. The Blue Jays’ infield has taken a hit in the second half, and Bichette’s bat would fit neatly into the kind of production they’re missing.
Using the All-Star break as the dividing line, Bichette has gone from a .677 OPS and 88 wRC+ before the Midsummer Classic to a .788 OPS and 120 wRC+ since then. Only four Blue Jays have been better over that same stretch: Alejandro Kirk, Brett Bateman, George Springer, and Josh Smith, who has fewer than 60 plate appearances.
August was especially strong for Bichette, when he posted a 135 wRC+. Even so, he finished the month with negative win probability added, largely because the lineup around him wasn’t doing much. He’s been productive, but in New York it hasn’t translated into much team success.
That only makes the Blue Jays’ own infield issues stand out more. Kazuma Okamoto, now handling Bichette’s old third-base spot, has put up a 100 wRC+ since the All-Star break. Ernie Clement, who is filling what would have been Bichette’s new role in Toronto, has been losing playing time down the stretch while sitting at -0.4 fWAR.
So for now, there’s no fixing it. Toronto can only look back and wonder what it would look like with Bichette still in the mix. Maybe the two sides get another shot at each other this offseason in free agency, if he opts out of his deal with the Mets ahead of the lockout.
And that’s the bigger takeaway here: teams can never really have too much star power, especially when October baseball is the goal.
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The fifth inning had the kind of pop Toronto has been trying to bottle, with Springer and Okamoto going deep on either side of Guerrero to turn the frame into a power surge. Dylan Cease did his part too, working five innings and allowing one run while striking out nine, and the bullpen carried it from there with multiple relievers helping finish the job. It was the sort of complete night the Blue Jays have been searching for, even if one swing in particular left just a little more to wonder about. [Read more 🡒]