The Blue Jays and Bo Bichette have agreed to a three-year contract, worth $25 million. The deal includes an option for a fourth year and a $2 million signing bonus. The 23-year-old shortstop has emerged as one of the top offensive players in Major League Baseball, batting .311/.358/.511 with 10 home runs and 17 doubles in 2020. Bichette is coming off a breakout season, and the Blue Jays are clearly happy to have him locked up for the foreseeable future.
Concerns over Bo Bichette’s upcoming arbitration are now a thing of the past after the Blue Jays reportedly signed a multi-year deal with the reigning American League hit list leader Tuesday night.
The financial details of Bichette’s new deal were still unknown late Tuesday night, but it will be for a three-year deal, according to the New York Post’s Joel Sherman. Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith was the first to report that Bichette and the Jays had reached an agreement.
The new contract, which has yet to be confirmed by the Jays, would buy out Bichette’s years of eligibility for arbitration. This would not affect his free hand, which is set to begin after the 2025 season.
Tuesday’s development came in the same week that Bichette and the Jays were scheduled to face off in an arbitration hearing. The 24-year-old wanted $7.5 million for the upcoming season while the Jays submitted $5 million. The $2.5 million difference tied with Kyle Tucker and the Houston Astros for the largest discrepancy between a team and a player.
The Jays are considered a file-and-trial team, meaning that after exchanging arbitration numbers with a player, they intend to attend a hearing. Per team policy, annual settlements are not sufficient to avoid this process, but exceptions are made for multi-year contracts. That seems to be the case here.
Bichette has led the AL in hits for the past two seasons and has an all-star appearance on his resume. He’s hit .297 with 69 home runs and 239 RBIs in four big league seasons. The former second-round pick still has room to grow defensively but has improved in recent years, bringing elite offensive production to the position.
Bichette got off to a slow start to the 2022 season, going through some protracted struggles that caused him to drop to seventh in the batting order on August 16. Shortly after, he walked away in tears with one of his most prolific stretches of his career. He hit .406 with seven home runs and 27 RBIs in September.
The three-year deal ensures there is no arbitration drama, and finding common ground now could bode well for future deals between Bichette’s agent and the Jays. But on the whole not much changes either because Bichette would be under the club’s control for the next three seasons.
What this deal offers is some cost certainty for the Jays and guaranteed money for Bichette. There are benefits to both and yet far greater negotiations remain. In a way, the arbitration years are easy, it’s the free agency years – where any team can compete in the bidding – that are much more difficult to quantify.
There’s still work to be done for the Jays and Bichette on that front, but for now it seems they can take solace with a three-year deal. Those other complicated talks can wait, at least for now.
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