Blue Jays Notebook: Why Bichette deserved All-Star Game start over Seager

TORONTO — It’s probably not worth getting overly worked up about fans' selection of Corey Seager over Bo Bichette as the American League's starting shortstop in the upcoming All-Star Game. Seager's a deserving all-star, and there’s little doubt Bichette will be selected when reserves are announced Sunday.

Still, the choice of Seager over Bichette prompts an interesting question: would you rather have a player with superior rate stats in fewer at-bats (Seager) or someone who’s played every day with a less outrageous slash line (Bichette)?

After Thursday’s game, manager John Schneider made his thoughts abundantly clear. “Bo should be starting,” he said in response to a question about his bullpen.

For comparison’s sake, here are the numbers of the two shortstops:

Bichette: .319/.347/.504 with 110 hits including 14 home runs in 345 at-bats plus 701.2 defensive innings for 3.7 WAR.

Seager: .345/.411/.609 with 68 hits including 10 home runs 197 at-bats plus 365 defensive innings for 2.9 WAR.

One way to compare the two players is to look at what Seager would have to do to reach Bichette’s totals. The answer: 42 hits including four home runs over 148 at-bats for a .284 batting average – and more than 37 games’ worth of defensive innings at shortstop. That, plus Seager’s totals equals Bichette’s season.

Clearly, there’s real distance between Seager and Bichette, especially when it comes to playing the field. Viewed through that lens, Bichette should be the starter and Wins Above Replacement — always useful for guidance on questions like this — agrees.

Again, there are far bigger questions for the Blue Jays than who starts at short in Seattle, and there’s room for two elite shortstops on the same team (on that point the Toronto front office definitely agrees as they seriously pursued the longtime Dodger two off-seasons ago when some described a deal with him as their ideal off-season outcome).

Two years later, it’s the Rangers who are enjoying Seager’s production but for whatever it’s worth Bichette would have been the more deserving choice for this All-Star Game start.

A lot has changed in the last four years for Vladimir Guerrero Jr., John Schneider and the Blue Jays.

Back in 2019 when Guerrero Jr. electrified the Cleveland crowd by going deep 91 times in the Home Run Derby, his batting practice pitcher was a little-known coach, not a big-league manager, the Blue Jays were in the midst of a rebuild, and some players weren’t convinced that Guerrero Jr., then 20 and not yet a big-league all-star, should have been there in the first place.

“People were talking trash that he shouldn’t be in (as a non-all-star),” Astros third baseman Alex Bregman said that night. “He proved a lot of people wrong. He showed the world that he’s coming.”

After four years and a home run title, there’s no longer any doubt that Guerrero Jr. belongs in the derby, even after a first half in which he has hit just 12 home runs. And after thoroughly enjoying the 2019 derby, Schneider’s ready to throw belt high middle-in heaters as long as his first baseman can hit them.

“That’s probably the most fun I’ve had on the field,” he recalled Thursday.

And as fun as the derby is, the Blue Jays need Guerrero Jr. to deliver when it counts, too. With three home runs this week, he’s now trending in the right direction. 

Teams are spending lots of energy preparing for the Aug. 1 trade deadline, but it may take a while longer before GMs start texting names back and forth.

“It’s very early,” Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins said earlier this week. “The dialogue (between teams) is around understanding goals, and I think it's still unclear for some teams with all of the parity. But every team is doing the due diligence — and seemingly a few more doing the due diligence this year.”

With so many teams in striking distance of playoff berths, most talks haven’t gotten specific yet. Once in-between teams like the Mets, Cardinals, Mariners and Red Sox choose a direction, their decisions will impact the market as a whole. As another executive pointed out, a 3-17 stretch for one of those clubs leads to a very different deadline than a 17-3 stretch.

In the meantime, we can at least indulge in some speculation — and to be clear, what follows is just that. But in addition to their obvious need for pitching the Blue Jays could use a bat.

Among the names worthy of some attention for a Blue Jays team without a ton of prospect depth at its disposal: Tommy Pham and Mark Canha of the Mets, Ramon Laureano of the A’s, Adam Duvall of the Red Sox, Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates and Jurickson Profar of the Rockies. 

All but Laureano are on the brink of free agency, which should make them more affordable than players with multiple years of club control remaining. Of course, no GM wants to give up a legitimate prospect for a part-time rental bat, but the alternative is a weak bench. Best-case for the Blue Jays, prices drop. But while that might happen by Aug. 1, there’s little reason for the few existing sellers to lower their expectations much earlier.