Part of the challenge of assembling a team in the off-season is ensuring all the puzzle pieces fit. Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette wants to help alleviate that problem for his team.
Toronto manager Charlie Montoyo, speaking Thursday with Stephen Brunt and Arash Madani on Writers Bloc, recalled a recent conversation with Bichette in which the 21-year-old shortstop expressed willingness to have positional flexibility.
“We were talking about free agents and (I said), ‘We might sign this guy,’” Montoyo said on Sportsnet 590 The FAN. “And Bo said, ‘I’ll play anywhere. Sign that guy’…That’s the kind of kid this guy is.”
To be clear, Montoyo is quite satisfied pencilling Bichette in at shortstop for the foreseeable future.
“What impressed me more about him last year wasn’t just the hitting — the hitting impressed everybody,” Montoyo said of Bichette, who had a team-high .930 OPS. “(It was) the way he played shortstop. He played big league-calibre shortstop and that’s what I like most about him.”
Bichette had a pedestrian 0.7 defensive runs above average in 2019 (which placed him 26th on Fangraphs’ leaderboard among 34 shortstops with 350-plus innings). But again, it’s important to recall he’s only 21.
“For us to be a championship team, you need a good shortstop,” Montoyo said. “He already is, and he’s only going to get better.”
The hope is that the Blue Jays will get better as a whole in 2020. In his conversation on Writers Bloc, Montoyo talked about having last year’s loaded rookie class for a full season, facing AL East-foe Gerrit Cole and more.
Next season is still more than three months away, which means the Blue Jays have plenty of time to make additional moves to help construct the 2020 roster. And it’s clear to Montoyo that Bichette wants to help any way he can.
“He’ll do whatever it takes,” Montoyo said.
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