‘THE SKY’S THE LIMIT’: After inspired debut, Bo Bichette ready for star turn in Blue Jays’ legacy legion
Feb. 28-DUNEDIN, Fla. — Bo Bichette is the Toronto Blue Jays’ legacy player whose dad is not a Hall of Famer. Like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Cavan Biggio, he grew up in and around major league clubhouses, but could just as likely be caught with a tennis racquet in hand as a baseball bat.
While he certainly credits his accomplished father for the guidance and sacrifice to put him on a path to the big leagues, it’s his mother who perhaps had the biggest hand in his development.
While his big league arrival wasn’t as anticipated as the younger Guerrero’s, whose first batting practice round at Rogers Centre was carried live in two countries and streamed worldwide, Bichette needed just 46 games last summer to stoke the imagination of Blue Jays fans..
And now it’s safe to wonder if Bichette, an athletic freak shortstop who plays with both power and grace, turns out to be the best of the bunch.
“The sky’s the limit,” says Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo.
Oh, it was just 46 games, but consider for a moment what Bichette packed into them. Thanks in large part to his startlingly good defense, Bichette racked up 2.1 Wins Above Replacement, equaling Guerrero’s total over 123 games. While extrapolating WAR over a full season is a dicey proposition, a six-win season would have placed Bichette in the rent district occupied by All-Stars like Mookie Betts, Matt Chapman and George Springer.
In his first exposure to big league pitching, he produced a .311/.358/.571 slash line, 11 homers and 18 doubles, a tribute to his plate discipline, power and hitting ability.
Just two weeks into his career, Bichette, who turns 22 next month, set a major league record by doubling in nine consecutive games — equaling Babe Ruth’s career-long extra-base hit streak.
Bichette’s debut is neither definitive nor easily dismissed — falling somewhere between potential September mirage and full-season sample. Yet, his athleticism and mature approach are two crucial facets that should outlast any slumps.
You’d think those would be the product of endless baseball showcases, a young man indoctrinated early into baseball bro life, led by his father, Dante, a 14-year big league veteran who slugged 274 home runs.
Not exactly.
“He didn’t want me to play baseball,” Bo says of Dante. “He wanted me to play tennis. I don’t think he pushed it on me at all. He gave me every soccer ball, the basketball, the football, the tennis racquet, the baseball bat — he gave me it all and let me decide.”
“Once I got older, he tried to push tennis, but it just didn’t work.”
Dante was no fool: By the time Bo was in seventh grade, he was playing on his high school’s varsity tennis team as its No. 1 singles player. Come high school, his parents finally put pragmatism on the table: If you want to be great, choose one or the other.
Bo enjoyed time in the batting cage, enjoyed baseball practice, yet only enjoyed the matches when it came to tennis.
So, baseball it was. By the time Bo was in high school, older brother Dante Jr., a 2011 first-pick of the Yankees, was knocking around their Class A affiliates. The elder Bichette accepted a job as the Rockies’ hitting coach in 2013.
When most athletic prodigies — tennis, baseball, or otherwise — are home-schooled, it’s usually to maximize their competitive development. For the Bichettes, it was a decidedly family venture.
“My mom didn’t want me to be away from my dad and my brother for so long,” says Bo, “so we took our school and traveled around follow
ing both of them.”
Dad resigned as Rockies hitting coach after one season, telling reporters at the time that there was “too much of a tug to go back home and finish raising the boys.”
Dante Jr.’s career topped out at Class AA, while the home-schooled Bo competed for Lakewood High in St. Petersburg, Florida. A major-league scout who shadowed Bo at the time and now covers the American League was struck by his athleticism then — and even moreso now.
“I never thought he’d stay at shortstop when I saw him as a young kid,” said the scout, who spoke to USA TODAY Sports on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly. “He proved me wrong.” Helping hand from home Drafted 66th overall by the Blue Jays in 2016 — two spots after the Mets took fellow Tampa-area star Pete Alonso — Bichette’s rise through the minors was both loud and methodical.
He posted an .894 OPS over four seasons and by 20 had played a full year at Class AA.
That 2018 New Hampshire Fisher Cats team received significant attention due to its three second-generation players — Bichette, Biggio and Guerrero Jr., who slammed 14 homers in 61 games there before graduating to Class AAA. Yet with so much attention fixed on the trio’s famous fathers, it was easy to miss Mariana Bichette’s contribution to her son’s rise.
When it was time for Bichette to ship off to the Midwest League for his first full pro season, he had a simple request for his mother.
“I asked her, ’Mom, I don’t want to live by myself for the season. Will you come up for the season and help me?’” he says. “So, she came up and helped me, moved to Lansing, Michigan, to make sure I was comfortable.
“I was lucky she’d been through it with my dad, so she knew the schedule, I was able to focus on baseball and not worry about groceries or cleaning my house or anything like that.”
Bichette realized how fortunate he was that his family could afford such an arrangement, so it became something of a seasonal tradition.
Like training wheels, Mariana’s season-starting residencies grew shorter as Bichette grew older.
“Little by little,” he says, “she weaned off.”
A star is born?
Now, Bo has a chance to equal or exceed the accomplishments of his father, a four-time All-Star and Silver Slugger winner.
The Blue Jays have been in a rebuild mode the better part of three seasons, but with the long-awaited arrival of their position-player gems — and with top pitching prospect Nate Pearson knocking on the door — it’s go time.
Toronto signed free agent pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu to a four-year, $80 million deal this offseason, and with its young core hopes its relevance rises with its win total.
While making no claims that he’s the sport’s next coming, Bichette says he will embrace the trappings of fame that may come with his future production, hoping to see any number of young, charismatic players boost the game’s profile.
“I don’t think we’ve had one since, really, Jeter,” he says.
“When you think of football, you think of Tom Brady. When you think of basketball, you think of LeBron James. When you think of baseball, you don’t necessarily think of a certain guy.”
“If that happens to be me, that’s fine, but I just want the game to grow, and any way I can help in that, I’ll do.”
For now, Bichette must worry about his first full big league season. Bichette has secured a residence in Toronto, and is admittedly jumpy about his first Opening Day, a ritual he believes will never get old.
Mom will be on hand, too, if only for a little while.
“She’ll be there,” Bo says, “but probably just for the first homestand.”
And then the youngest Bichette will venture onward, into a future that seems limitless.