Bo Bichette Breaks Baseballs, and Soon, the Bank

Bo Bichette went 2-for-6 with a three-run homer in Toronto’s 20-1 win over the Rockies on Wednesday afternoon. Business as usual.

Over the past month, Bichette has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball. Over his past 27 games, he is 46-for-115, bringing his batting average for the season to .301. This hot streak coincides broadly with a move down the lineup for the 27-year-old shortstop, from getting on base in front of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to being tasked with driving him in. And because Guerrero is on base quite a bit, Bichette is also among the leaders in RBI in that span, with 27 in that 27-game run.

It’s gone under the radar a little, what with the Red Sox setting the world on fire, but Bichette’s Blue Jays have had a good month and change. Toronto is 24-10 since June 28, which is the second-best record in the American League behind Boston’s. In that time, the Jays have been the highest-scoring team in baseball.

In about six weeks, they’ve made up 9 1/2 games on the struggling Yankees, turning a faint hope of winning the division into a likelihood. Our playoff odds have Toronto as more than a 2-to-1 favorite to win the AL East, and a 3-to-2 favorite for a first-round bye. In late June, it was a coin flip whether the Jays would make the playoffs at all; now, it’s a near-lock that they’ll make it back to October even if Boston catches them.

Bichette doesn’t deserve all the credit for this run; Guerrero and, weirdly, Joey Loperfido have been almost as good offensively over the past month. Nevertheless, after a brutal 2024 season, Bichette is playing like a star again. Last year, Bichette hit .225/.277/.322 in 81 games, around a series of calf injuries and a broken finger that ended his season two weeks early. His career was already in a bit of a weird place before that happened. Bichette had been so good as a rookie (when he hit .311 with 11 home runs in just 46 games), he ruined things for himself.

The Bichette who showed up from 2021 to 2023 was really good; over those three seasons he hit .298/.339/.476 and was consistent year-to-year. His wRC+ over those three seasons was 125, never going higher than 129 nor lower than 122. He averaged 24 home runs a season, never hitting more than 29 nor fewer than 20. He averaged 4.5 WAR, never posting more than 4.9 nor fewer than 3.9.

Bichette was one of the top contact hitters in baseball, leading the AL in base hits in both 2021 and 2022. He was second to Guerrero in runs scored in 2021 as well. But he never put in an MVP-challenging season, which was a mild disappointment after the flashes he showed as a 21-year-old rookie. We expect guys who are that good that young to get better; Bichette just stayed really good.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays have failed to win a single game in three trips to the playoffs during Bichette’s career; surely that was not what they had in mind when he and Guerrero came up together. More concerningly, the clock is ticking. Guerrero just signed an extension that will keep him in Toronto until the fall of civilization, but the three-year contract Bichette signed in 2023 is up this year, making him a free agent at the end of this season. (And perhaps, to borrow a relevant Toronto sports metaphor, the Mitch Marner to Vladito’s Auston Matthews.)

In the short-term, the implications of Bichette’s hot streak have to do with the Blue Jays’ run at their first AL East title and playoff series win since 2016, and their first championship since 1993.

It hasn’t all been perfect (for instance, Bichette grounded into a double play in four straight games at the end of July, which is weird), but in general, Bichette has been a major offensive catalyst. Turns out that when a key hitter bats .400 with power over the course of a month, the team benefits.

In some respects, Bichette is back to his old, pre-injury self. His wRC+ is 126, and he’s on pace for 22 home runs. But he’s also running the highest full-season xSLG of his career. He’s striking out in just 14.8% of his plate appearances, which would blow away his previous career low. And even though Bichette remains one of the most spray-happy hitters in the league, he’s pulling the ball in the air more than he has since 2020.

Bichette and Guerrero are firing on all cylinders at the same time for the first time since 2022 at least; I’d argue this is they best they’ve been together since 2021. With George Springer having discovered the fountain of youth, you’d like your chances going into the playoffs with this lineup.

Blue Jays fans won’t thank me for looking ahead to the offseason, but I do feel obligated to point out that this hot streak is not only coming at a great time for Toronto; it’s coming at a great time for Bichette personally. Because if he’d gone into free agency on a repeat of 2024, he would’ve been looking for a pillow contract. But since he’s re-established himself as an All-Star-level performer, I don’t want to be crass, but the man’s going to get paid.

Bichette doesn’t have ridiculous exit velo numbers. He’s not a great all-around athlete or a great defender. He doesn’t walk. He only hits for some power. The value is all in the bat, and most of that value is in contact skill, which can be volatile for some hitters. Just look at Luis Arraez.

Fortunately, there’s a recent example of a line drive-spraying shortstop who doesn’t walk much, only hits for 20-homer power, and isn’t an elite defender making bank in free agency despite those shortfalls. Hear me out on this one:

Those are Bichette’s career numbers up against Turner’s numbers from his major league debut until the end of 2022, when he hit free agency.

Hot streak or no, Turner was a better player then than Bichette is now. Both had defensive questions, but with Turner it was more like “he’s going to have to move to center field eventually,” while with Bichette it’s “he should have moved to second base already.” Bichette is also not a great runner; he has one great basestealing season on his CV, and it’s five years in the past. Turner is one of the fastest players, best baserunners, and most efficient high-volume basestealers in the league.

Those differences are not trivial; just look at the table, and you’ll see they add up to more than 80 runs’ worth of value over the time period in question. But the rest of the WAR difference is just playing time; Turner’s pre-free agency period will end up being about half a season longer than Bichette’s.

The hitting numbers are eerily similar, though, and Bichette will be two years younger than Turner was when he hits free agency.

The going rate for a shortstop of this quality is quite high. Turner got $300 million over 11 years, and his Phillies tenure has had its ups and downs. But consider this: Twenty-four position players in that free agent class signed multi-year contracts and the only one who’s produced more WAR since then is Aaron Judge.

And the market hasn’t exactly cooled down; Willy Adames got $182 million over seven years just last offseason. Given Bichette’s age and recent production, anything under $200 million would be an absolute shock. Good for him, and the resurgent Blue Jays. When Bo Bichette gets hot, everyone profits.