Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette proving last year's red-hot finish was no fluke

Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette entered the 2023 season coming off the most confounding campaign of his career.

In the first five months of the year he hit a disappointing .260/.305/.420 — a far cry from the .305/.345/.506 he slashed in his first three seasons. Then he exploded in September with an outrageous 1.105 OPS in the last 32 games of 2022.

The result of that roller coaster was year-long production that fell in line with his track record. So, heading into 2023, it seemed fair to expect a player who’d produced a wRC+ between 120 and 129 in three straight seasons to be in for more of the same.

When 2023 is all said and done that may be the case, but so far Bichette looks remarkably similar to the guy he was during his scorching September.

The difference here is largely a few singles falling in as Bichette had a bloated .443 BABIP in the final month of 2022 and possesses a more reasonable .378 to start 2023.

What stands out the most is the strikeout percentages, which are far below the shortstop’s career average (21.2%). We now have a sample of 42 consecutive games where he’s struck out at approximately two-thirds of his normal rate.

To be fair, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Bichette cut down his Ks in a similar way over a similar span…

… but when he brought his strikeout rates down in mid-2021, his power also declined. Meanwhile, his recent excellence has featured no shortage of thump:

That power has come from contact quality that is superior to Bichette’s career averages:

He has struck the ball so well at the beginning of 2023 that his xBA and xSLG (.423 and .689) far outweigh his actual numbers (.362 and .596). Bichette is one of the few players with a .996 OPS who can reasonably say he’s been unlucky.

It would be an understatement to say the 25-year-old’s combination of reduced strikeouts and power production recently has been potent. Since Sept. 1 of last season, Bichette has been the third-best hitter in the majors by wRC+ behind only Aaron Judge and Mike Trout.

For a little perspective, his wRC+ of 208 in these 42 games is a number no one but Barry Bonds has touched in a full season since 1957.

Bichette is unlikely to continue on a Bondsian pace, but even over the equivalent of a quarter season this is impressive stuff. The sample is small enough that we are still talking about a hot streak rather than a full-scale transformation as a player — but this is now a hot streak that’s spanned multiple years and 192 trips to the plate.

Considering Bichette finished 2022 with the best month of his career, expecting him to pick up where he left off was an unfair expectation. That’s just what he’s done, though.

He’s due for a slowdown at some point, but if he continues to keep his strikeouts down without sacrificing power, Bichette could go from one of the Blue Jays' most consistent year-to-year producers to a hitter establishing a new baseline.