Bo Bichette plans to move on from miserable 2024 as Blue Jays face off-season of uncertainty

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Failure. Frustration. Futility.

In the combined 72-game stint on the injured list during the heart of the first truly lost season of his career, Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette dealt with all of those emotions as if they were stages of grief.

Failure. A team in which so much more was expected never got on track, regressing to a 74-88 season, a nosedive of 15 fewer wins from the previous year.

Frustration. In his sixth season in the big leagues, Bichette was hoping for big breakthroughs both personally and for the team. Instead, he had mad struggles at the plate and spent almost half of the season on the injured list over three separate stints.

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Futility. The season ended in a dismal fashion, in stark contrast to what he and others had hoped. The holes were gaping in a lineup that never really performed to a championship level, which drove Bichette crazy.

The pain aside, it was almost fitting that he ended the season sidelined with a broken finger, given all that went wrong in 2024.

“I’ve moved on,” Bichette said in an interview in the Blue Jays clubhouse prior to the final game of the season. “I’ve had a ton of time off with injuries. A ton of time to process what happened and deal with the frustration of it all and how I expected so much more.

“But now I’ve moved past it. I’ve moved on.”

Of course, how much “moving on” will there be with Bichette in the next 12 months is high on the list of significant questions surrounding the team at present.

And his conviction to keep pushing forward can’t be easy for Bichette, a highly driven player who has historically been hard on himself when things go awry. But what choice did he have, really?

At age 26 — he’ll be 27 three weeks prior to Opening Day 2025 — Bichette is headed towards what is both the most critical and uncertain season in his career, one that still holds plenty of promise but also is loaded with unanswered questions.

Will he be able to rebound offensively, returning to the form that had him lead the American League in hits for back-to-back seasons in 2021 (191) and 2022 (189)? It’s certainly possible if he stays healthy and regains his confidence and form.

Will he be traded in the off-season? The rumour mill likes to churn it as an inevitability, though it seems a stretch.

Will he reach free agency at the end of a 2025 season, going unextended by Blue Jays management? Perhaps the most likely scenario given perceived value to both player and management at present.

For his part, Bichette intends to take care of business on the field with the implication that doing so will also help settle the business of his playing future off of it.

“Obviously I need to be better in a number of areas so I’ll just continue to work on doing that, in every area, offensively and defensively,” Bichette said. “I need to get healthy, that’s the first priority.”

After those three IL stints — with a calf strain from June 15-24 and again from July 20 to Sept. 16, then, after a one-game return to the big-league lineup, for the remainder of the season after suffering a fractured middle finger on his right hand.

Bichette, who was in the Jays dugout for the final home stand, was planning to head to Arizona immediately after the last game to get a pin removed from his finger. He was confident that recovery would be swift enough to allow for a proper winter’s preparation for the huge season that awaits.

As a clubhouse leader and intense competitor, Bichette has made it his vocation to have his voice heard. Like many of his teammates, he surely has opinions on the work that’s needed from management, right?

“That’s not really my area to address,” Bichette said tactfully. “In terms of what I’m focused on, I’m trying to bring everybody together more.”

While vague to what that means, Bichette clearly is well aware of the unrest his teammates have felt about such a wayward season. He is aware of comments from Chris Bassitt and Kevin Gausman, among others, and recognizes that a solid clubhouse culture is paramount to success.

In an interview prior to the season, Bichette made it clear that he expected better of himself and everyone around him. What followed over 162 was in profound contrast to those goals.

“I think that you just have to remember that we’re professionals here and our No. 1 priority every day as professionals is to come here and win,” Bichette said in a conversation centred on how the team could move on from the playoff disappointment of 2023 to an improved 2024. “That’s what we’re paid to do. That’s the standard.

“That’s the culture … and that culture is built over a period of time of people holding each other accountable to that standard and culture.”

Attempts to do that in 2024 weren’t exactly fruitful, thanks to a flawed roster and underachievement by a number of players, the one-time all star shortstop included.

Bichette is well aware of all of it and the stakes that await in the months ahead. How it all plays out could be a huge factor in the immediate future of the franchise.