Article: Make or Break Players On The 2025 Blue Jays: Bo Bichette

[Mike LeSage]

Homegrown All-Star Bo Bichette had a season we’d all like to forget and now finds himself in a real make-or-break situation entering 2025.

Bo Bichette was never supposed to find himself in a feature like this one. He was never make-or-break, he just kept on making it. Bichette came into the 2024 season with three straight 20-homer seasons and a career batting average of .299. But after cratering in an injury-plagued 2024 campaign, it's hard to overstate how big regaining his previous form would be to the Blue Jays.

What Went Wrong in 2024?
The short answer is injuries. Before we dive into 2024, let's look at the end of 2023. August 2023 saw Bo Bichette hit the injured list twice. First was a right knee injury. When he came back from that injury (sooner than necessary?) he did not perform well at the plate and saw another IL stint with a right quad strain. Coming back from the quad strain, he put up some less than stellar performances, but over the final two weeks of the season, Bichette was leading the charge as the best bat on the team.

On to 2024, there were no signs in spring training that Bichette was in for anything other than another productive year. The first week of the season, he missed a couple of games with neck spasms. He put up a 96 wRC+ over the 28 games he did play in March/April. May saw some positive results and a 107 wRC+ (well below the 126 career mark Bichette brought into the season, but trending in the right direction) before absolutely cratering in June to the tune of a 53 wRC+. That downturn coincided with a 10-day IL stint due to a strained right calf. In July, Bichette only saw action in nine games and ran a minuscule wRC+ of 2, missing time with a forearm contusion from a hit-by-pitch and twice with recurring calf issues.

The first July calf issue didn’t force Bichette to the IL. Instead he went day-to-day and used the pending All-Star break to buy some time off. Evidently that didn’t provide the fix and in his first game after the break, Bichette had to be pulled after aggravating the calf coming out of the batter’s box. After missing 53 games ,Bichette returned to the Jays in September and went 2-for-5 in his return. Taking groundballs before the next game, Bichette suffered a finger injury that required surgery and just like that, his season was done. So the short answer was injuries, but we also would have taken: everything.

What Can Go Right in 2025?
With the most rose-coloured glasses on and a healthy dose of “if healthy,” let’s remember that we’re talking about a two-time All-Star who received MVP votes in each of his first three ful seasons. He has led the American League in hits twice, and has put up the single best bWAR season this franchise has ever seen at shortstop (5.8 in 2021).

Every projection has Bichette bouncing back this year, and while there is some built-in hedging with consideration for last season, the projection systems OOPSY and The Bat see Bichette as the second-most productive player on the team. Steamer and ATC have him third and ZiPS, the lowest, has him fifth. Baseball Reference profiles Corey Seager as being Bichette’s most comparable batter through age 26, and if Bichette can replicate even half of Seager’s World Series MVP awards (and do it in Toronto) he'll go down as a Toronto legend.

Sure, this clip is just batting practice in spring training, and Bichette isn’t called on to be the power guy, but watch this LOUD homer a few times and tell me you don’t feel something.

How Will This Impact the Blue Jays?
For a single player, a swing of four or five wins from one year to the next would be huge in any situation, but Bichette might just be well-positioned for it. As his season progresses, regardless of his production level, there will be continual talk about his contract status. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s pending free agency has taken the majority of the spotlight, but Bichette’s can’t be ignored (even if that’s the approach the front office has taken). He’ll have to block out or roll with a lot of rumours and speculation (something he struggled with last year) as either a potential trade chip or a free agent signing. The Contract Year Phenomenon will hopefully boost production and value. In the event Bichette is the subject of a mid-season trade (or lengthy absence for other reasons), a combination of Leo Jiménez and Ernie Clement are the likely candidates to fill in. Fangraphs has Arjun Nimmala as their 82nd ranked prospect (second in the franchise) but project his ETA as 2028. Could the Jays find ground on a four-year extension for Bichette? There might not be a player on this Jays team whose at-bats will be more heavily scrutinized than Bichette's this year. Let’s hope he’s up for the challenge.

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[Spanky99]

That HR clip is gold, I'm dreaming on big things this season with Bo.