Who will be the starting second baseman for the Blue Jays in 2023?

Fine, I’ll admit it’s possible

By now I’m sure there’s a portion of you that have been waiting to finish this article and tell me about the option I haven’t mentioned. Well, even though I don’t agree with the idea at all, I’ll admit that it’s possible that the Blue Jays could move Bo Bichette to second base.

In my view, I think young Bo takes more heat than he deserves for his defence, even if I’m willing to admit that he made his fair share of poor errors in 2022. We’ve long heard about his work ethic and his desire to improve his defence, and I think we’ve seen plenty of evidence of improvement over the last season or two, even if the results don’t always show up on paper.

I know some fans and even some writers have suggested that the Blue Jays could experiment with Bichette at second base while starting Espinal at shortstop, and I’ll concede that it makes sense to some degree. I’ll admit that Espinal is the superior defender, but he’s nowhere near the two-way player that Bichette has proven to be, and I’m not sure I love the idea of locking him into an every day gig either.

There’s also the fact that Bichette is just three years away from free agency, and there’s a strong chance that the Blue Jays still want to lock him up for the long-term. He’s stated many times that he’s committed to the position, and I don’t think he’d give up his spot without a fight. Of course, if the Blue Jays went out and signed someone like Carlos Correa then the story could be different, but I don’t expect that to happen either.

In my opinion, I’ve seen enough improvement in Bichette to believe that he’ll continue to move in a positive direction as a shortstop, and that patience will ultimately be the Blue Jays’ friend here. However, instead of just waiting for the “Bo will be the 2B comments!” to come in, I thought I’d just address it directly.

Unless something major happens over the winter, I fully expect Bichette to return as the starting shortstop in 2023, even if I’ll reluctantly admit that it’s possible that might not be the case.