Blue Jays prospect Bo Bichette has changed representation, hiring CAA Baseball, per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca (via Twitter). The 20-year-old was a second-round pick in the 2016 draft.
Bichette vaulted up prospect rankings boards after a big showing in two A-ball leagues in 2017. He opened the current season at Double-A, where he carries a .279/.353/.421 slash with one home run and nine steals.
Though he is not quite as celebrated as teammate Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is also the son of a long-time big leaguer, Bichette entered the year as a consensus top-20 prospect leaguewide. There’s some question whether Bichette will stick at shortstop, he carries the promise of delivering some defensive value along with an intriguing bat.
As always, you can find up-to-date MLB representation information at MLBTR’s Agency Database.
Bo Bichette is a great prospect. The Jays should trade him now while his value is highest. As I said in Spring training, the Jays need starting pitchers. What they have now at the MLB level is almost toast.
Let’s package Bichette for a controllable starter or a handful of elite prospect arms.
I project Bichette as a below average to average MLB player, not a superstar. #Scoutseyes
Who cares about his change in representation.
Great strategy to stay irrelevant
I completely disagree with you. Bichette is a huge part of the future. He’s an excellent hitter & he is good defensively. They should keep him. They have two excellent young arms coming up at the same time as Bichette, Guerrero Jr. & Biggio. Romano & Reid-Foley are a combined 12-0 this season. Both have ERA’s below 2.00. The Jays are fine with young pitchers. Their AA team is loaded with top level prospects. Keep those players. I’d rather take my lumps for 2 seasons & then have team that is good for awhile.
.279 is not excellent hitting. Bichette needs to pick it up in AA before being promoted. Still, Bichette is doing well.
Vlad should be promoted (keyword is should) within the next 10 days. If it’s June 1st and Vlad is still in AA, the fans should be giving it to management Two months of hitting .390 is good enough for a promotion to the next level.
Is username Eric Lord actually Dante Bichette?
No way Bo sticks at short. His bat is average he will be consistently on the waiver wire just wait a few years
His bat is average? He was the minor league batting champ last season. The kid can hit.. I’ve watched the him play. He’s a better shortstop than people give him credit for. He’s a top 15 prospect for a reason. He will not be on the waiver wire consistently. He will be a consistent presence in the two hole of the Blue Jays lineup
There’s a lot of trolls Eric. These guys can already project that a top 20 league prospect will bust before they even have a chance to bust
Nobody is projecting bust here. Bichette needs to pick it up before he’s called up to AAA. Whereas Vlad should be in AAA because he’s torched AA pitching. I’m not saying this will be the norm, but let’s stop calling Bichette’s hitting this year “excellent”. I expect Bichette to go on a run.
I didn’t call his hitting this year excellent. I called his body of work in his minor league career as excellent. He’s played 34 games in AA as a 20-year old. He was hitting .302, but then ha a rough 5-game stretch. That isn’t a shock. Every hitter goes through a slump. His last few games have been better and he’s made adjustments. He’s a different type of hitter than Vlad Jr. Vlad is the power guy. That’s not Bichette. He’s not his father. He is the guy who is going to get to give Vlad the chance to drive him in. I do expect his numbers to improve with the way Vlad & Biggio are raking behind him. He’s going to see pitches to hit.
The number 2 short stop prospect in baseball?
That’s a premium position
Better off sticking with him
Jimmer, if the Jays were willing to spend over $200-mil to contend I would be on-board with your idea to deal Bichette.
(For those looking to point out the luxury threshold, I know the number)
Again, Yankees went out to get Stanton while Boston signed JD Martinez despite being over the luxury. I can stomach a Bichette trade if the Jays organization had an unmatched hunger to win to match their deep pockets.
I just think Bichette’s value is highest now. All these RaRa’s about how good he is in AA mean nothing because the most diffcult transition in any position player’s development is the step from AAA pitching to MLB pitching. Most cannot do that successfully and to say because he is hitting well at AA [.279 is not well] is a joke.
No the Jays need many more elite near ready arms if they are going to compete in the next few years.
As I have said over and over, the Toronto Blue Jays are destined to at least3 more years of no playoff baseball under the current regime.
The player horses and prospects ARE NOT there to build a championship club in the next 3 years. Trust me folks, it is not going to happen depaite the marketing RaRa’s about one or two good propsects.
The Toronto Blue Jays must be totally blowup and rebuilt and the rotation is the first, not last place to start. This Atkins/Shaprio regime is not getting it done and we knew that in advance last year and the year before that from good scouting reported in these pges. #Scoutseyes
Maybe yes maybe no
Double a is the defining factor to see what a prospect can do.
He needs a year
The Jays do not need to totally blow up their rotation. Keep Sanchez. Then add Ried-Foley & Romano to him & you got a solid start to the rotation. You aren’t giving those two guys enough credit. Bichette was hitting higher than .279 & then slumped for a few games. His manager gave him a game off & he’s hit since. Remember, he is just 20 years old. He is going to go through some slumps at the plate. Every player at every level does at some point. He’s a good building block to keep. As a Jays fan, I’d love to be a championship in the net few years. However, I don’t want a brief shot at glory, followed by a long stretch of mediocrity. I’d rather take my chances with Guerrero Jr., Bichette, Biggio, Reid-Foley, Romano & Gurriel going forward. The Jays have actually done a good job of rebuilding their farm system after Anthopolous traded away so many prospects a few years back.
“the most diffcult transition in any position player’s development is the step from AAA pitching to MLB pitching.”
Ya don’t say? Thanks captain obvious.
That’s right after that other most difficult transaction from A ball to AA….and the other most difficult transition from AAA to MLB….
Eric Lord….Jimmer said blow up the team and target starting pitching, not blow up the starting rotation.
As for me pointing out Bichette’s average, well, who’s considered the excellent hitter? The guy hitting under .280 with 1 homer or the dude just below .400? That guy hitting .390 should be in Buffalo. Whereas Bichette can stay in AA until he picks it up.
Jimmer, Bichette’s value is huge right now. And you are correct; the pitching is thin. IF the Jays saw potential in Reid-Foley or Romano next year they would have been promoted to AAA by now.
Jays won’t overtake Yankees or Boston anytime soon. Yankees have a ton of youth and Boston is willing to spend as much as they need to reach October.
Atkins doesn’t believe in full rebuilds, apparently. I don’t know what his interpretation of soft rebuild is, but it needs to happen in about 5-6 weeks.
Bichette had the highest batting average of any minor leaguer last season. He knows how to hit. His average dipped after a 5-game slump. He is an excellent hitter and he will improve his numbers. I never said call Bichette up AAA. I said don’t trade him. I also don’t think Vlad Jr. should be in AAA yet. His hitting is there, but his defense is still a work in progress. He’s gotten better, but still needs some work. No need to rush things. He’ll be in AAA before the year is over.
Bo’s hitting .279. Stop excusing him. Yes he’ll improve. Yes he’ll probably improve the average. Yes he will reach AAA eventually.
Vlad can work on his defense in AAA, AA, Single A, Low A, wherever. Playing in Buffalo won’t hurt his D. If anything he’ll have Toronto coaches (instructors not part of in-game action) just 90 minutes away to travel to Buffalo and work on his D. Vlad should be in AAA and should not be kept in AA because of defense. That is absurd.
What makes you think we could get “a handful of elite prospect arms” for Bichette? He’s just a prospect himself.
That could actually be an intriguing idea. Obviously it wouldn’t be a “handful of elite prospect arms,” but it could be a couple high end arms. The White Sox, for one, have a lot of pitching prospects that they could conceivably make available. I wouldn’t move Kopech for him, but they do have other high end arms like Hansen, Cease, Dunning. That being said, I don’t see the Sox trading two of those guys for another 20 year old prospect.
That is why he said “package”. Bichette would have to be in a deal involving a Smoak or a Pillar or both in-order to reach the handful of arms.
That’s not why he said package. If he was intending on actually packaging Bichette with a valuable piece from the major league roster, he would’ve said that. And on the off chance that is what he actually meant, he did a horrible job of wording it.
Anyways – Nobody is giving up a “handful of elite prospect arms” even if one of the guys you mentioned is included. Heck, the only teams that actually have a handful of elite prospect arms are the White Sox, Braves, Padres, and Cardinals. I know for a fact the White Sox need all the arms they can get, and I’d bet the Padres feel the same way.
Package means package, it doesn’t mean single player.
As for describing the most difficult transistion from AAA to MLB pitching, I say that becuase people actually believe because a AA player is batting .280 that they are a prospect to be elite in the major leagues which is so ridiculous to even consider that to be true let alone say it or type it out.
At AA, a position player may see one or two pitchers worth anything PER WEEK. That means that their stats mean almost nothing after a short term in AA. For example, It is rare in AA that anyone has a MLB curve or slider. It is just heater, heater heater.
Many bloggers in these pages don’t know this and make grossly inaccurate statements about the potential of prospects. I laugh at people making trying to make prospect projections. How many of them have actually worked out a propect in a MLB prospect camp? Answer: One – me.
MLB prospect camp. Yeah sure. LMAO. Pretends to know about baseball and then judges a player on a five game slump. Have fun in your make-believe world.
They can have Sonny Gray for Bo.
Not this Scoutseyes crap again! It’s BS!
As Vlad Jr goes, Bichette goes.Pretty sure that is why they haven’t moved him up. There is something to keeping these two together. A level of comfort I suppose.
Bunk beds.
Vlad’s ready to take on AAA. Let him. Maybe that will push Bichette. These young guys need to have a level of discomfort thrown at them once in a while.
LOL, they ARE! They’re kids playing in AA. They are challenged every year and have passed all of them with flying colours.
Absolutely. Until now for Bichette. That .279 now to .258. 37Ks in 37 games. Can’t hold Vlad back because Bichette isn’t ready for AAA. This is good for Bo; this is his first small hurdle to overcome.