A solid September from Bichette would answer a lot of questions
It's not often that an injury to a baseball player is a good thing.
Yet for Bo Bichette, maybe it kinda sorta was?
Here's the case, which I'm not entirely serious about: When Bichette went down on July 20, the Toronto Blue Jays shortstop was mired in the longest, deepest funk at the plate in his career.
Even in 2022, when an anemic April caused him to lose his All-Star spot and an absolutely scorching September ended up making his full-season numbers look fine, he had some other good months.
His 2024 was going like this: disastrous April, decent May, and hey, why is it April again?
By July, he was a regular in trade rumors as the Jays were stuck in the basement. Bichette was said to be miles apart in talks on a possible contract extension that'd keep him in Toronto beyond 2025, when he's eligible to become a free agent.
Then he got hurt. That killed the trade chatter and hit the reset button on his messy season. Plus, it was said to be a mild calf strain. Not so bad! One could imagine him returning to a Jays team that had given up on the season and was no longer stressing about wins, allowing him to rediscover something like his old hitting form again.
Except that was almost a month ago, and Bichette is only now close to resuming baseball activities, manager John Schneider says. We'll assume those baseball activities include running and throwing, not just leaning on the dugout railing and eating sunflower seeds.
With a little more urgency in the air, will he be able to return for any significant time? If he doesn't, what do the Jays do about a would-be franchise pillar entering his walk year on the back of a career-worst season?
For the first part of this calamitous Blue Jays season, Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. were twin symbols of all that had gone wrong. The homegrown talents were supposed to be the core of a contending team, but neither could hit a lick as the Toronto offense sputtered. Guerrero has long since found his groove and then some, returning to the elite form of his best years and putting himself in line for a massive contract payday.
Bichette has not.
On July 20, his OPS was .597. It's never been lower than .800 in a full season before. His 69 OPS+ fell well short of the league-average 100. He'd never been lower than 120 before. So Bichette, who was normally at least 20% better than major-league average at the plate, has been 30% worse in 2024. That's over 330 plate appearances, or about half a season. This wasn't a slump, it was an indictment.
The underlying numbers didn't suggest a long run of bad luck, either. In 2023, Bichette was in the 98th percentile of major leaguers for expected batting average and the 89th percentile for expected slugging, per Statcast. In his truncated 2024, he plummeted to the 64th and 32nd percentile.
All of which is to say: Bichette could really use a stretch during which he looks like the Bo We Have Seen Before. He'll want to enter the offseason knowing the first half of 2024 was a weird aberration.
The Blue Jays could also really use that kind of performance - and not just to improve their record. Bichette's value as an asset is difficult to gauge. He was a two-time All-Star who would've made it three years running were it not for that one awful April in 2022. Then he fell off a cliff right when he should've been entering his prime. The economics of baseball mean that players are dramatically underpaid if they make it to the majors while still young, as Bichette did at 21, and then dramatically overpaid during years of declining production in their 30s. But for those few seasons in between, their production and contract should line up nicely, even if the money is huge. This is exactly how things were shaping up for Bichette. Until disaster struck.
A good finish from Bichette, even if it's just a good September, would at least give all parties a better sense of where they stand. They might still end up miles apart on contract talks, but at least they'd be able to explore trade opportunities so the Blue Jays don't risk losing him to free agency next summer.
But if he ends the 2024 season either without playing much or by returning and playing poorly, the Blue Jays' front office will have a dearth of good options. Try to shop one of the faces of the franchise while his contract status and recent performance make his value the lowest it's ever been? Or hope he turns it around next season and drives up his asking price?
September is usually a time for the kids, especially for a team in last place in the division. But for one Jays veteran, it'll be unusually important.
Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.