Blue Jays: Don’t overthink Bo Bichette’s recent comments

The Blue Jays’ top MiLB prospect, Bo Bichette, has been asked about his eventual MLB debut a few times lately. Fans shouldn’t make too much of his answers.

While the Blue Jays and their fan base wait for the next generation of this team to get to the point of being a playoff contender, patience isn’t always going to be easy to come by.

During a difficult losing season, one of the things that has kept the interest of many of us is the talent of the youth on the roster, as we’ve watched the emergence of guys like Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Cavan Biggio, Danny Jansen, and of course, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Their recent success only fuels the excitement for the future, and for more or that young talent to join them in Toronto and speed up this rebuild.

The most obvious candidate to be the next to make his MLB debut would be Bo Bichette, who has been the subject of plenty of discussion around this team lately. I wrote about him and his pending MLB promotion just the other day, and chances are the topic isn’t going to go away any time soon, especially as speculation continues to build about the Blue Jays selling off their veterans before the July 31st trade deadline, which could include infielders like Freddy Galvis and Eric Sogard.

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For now, the Blue Jays really don’t have room for Bichette on their 25 man roster, even if he’s shown that he’s ready. And even though the roster shuffle to make room for him could be no more than a few weeks away, that hasn’t stopped people from “poking the bear”, as they say.

He was asked about making the final leap to the big leagues a few days ago and gave fair answers, and also sent out a tweet the other day that caught a lot of attention, which talked about chasing “an outcome you can’t control”. He was questioned about the same topic by Sportnet’s David Singh, who tweeted and wrote about Bichette’s responses yesterday.

Singh began by helping Bichette make it clear that there was no “subliminal messaging” in his tweet from last week, and that it was actually a misunderstanding about a 1-5 performance that night when the young shortstop felt he should have had four hits. However, there was no mistaking the message he sent with his answer to Singh’s question, as you can see in the tweets above. That said, I’m not sure it’s anything to worry about.

On one hand, I can see why there could be some concern that Bichette is unhappy to still be in Triple-A, and/or is speaking out a little prematurely for where he’s at in his career. However, I think his comments are mostly fair, and we also have to remember he’s simply answering a question that he’s been asked. It’s also one that he’s hearing more and more all the time, and that likely doesn’t make it any easier to exercise patience, especially as he continues to rake in Buffalo.

It’s good to see that he’s feeling confident in his abilities, and is very aware of the elements of his game that the organization has asked him to work on. If there’s one part that I’m not wild about it would be the whole “they need to give me something new to work on”, but I also don’t have the benefit of hearing his tone or the full context of the conversation. It reads like he thinks that he’s mastered everything else, if you read it out of context.

Bichette went on to add to that topic, and hopefully most fans will see the rest of his comments rather than just the popular headlines and tweets that have been circulating lately.

"“If they call me up at 30 instead of 21, I’ll be a better player at 30. There’s definitely room for improvement. But nothing that’s glaring, or anything like that. I’ve got a lot better at defence, at base-running, as a hitter. Everything.”"

The 21-year-old is correct that he’s improved in pretty much every facet of the game, and I don’t know that he’s got much left to prove at his current level. That said, the timing still has to make sense for the Blue Jays to promote him and make sure he starts the vast majority of the time. The entire situation could look a lot different in a few weeks once the trade deadline has passed as well.

Until at least then, I don’t think spending any time or energy on worrying about Bichette’s recent comments is worthwhile, whether you’re a fan, or working for the Blue Jays’ organization. If the situation drags into August then we’re maybe looking at a different scenario, but for now I don’t see it as much more than a talented kid who is chomping at the bit for his next challenge. If you think you’re looking forward to seeing him on a MLB field, imagine how excited he is to get there?