The Jays’ Bo Bichette could go from good to great with a little more plate discipline

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This article was published 28/06/2021 (1604 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This might seem a little nitpicky, seeing how Bo Bichette is leading the major leagues in runs scored, has an OPS of .807 and is consistently mentioned on “first x number of career games” lists with people like Joe DiMaggio, but it would stand the Blue Jays shortstop in good stead if he were just a little more selective at the plate.

There is no question that Bichette is a great young hitter. The wild swings-and-misses early in counts aren’t because he’s not in control or he’s just up there hacking away, they are very much part of the plan. I mean, the plan isn’t to swing and miss, but those swings don’t look so out of control when he makes contact and punishes the baseball.

The issue is strike-zone discipline, both early and late in counts.

Bichette has found himself in an 0-2 count 73 times this season, including twice on Sunday. That’s 21.6 per cent of his total plate appearances. The league average is 21.4 per cent, so the 23-year-old is right with everybody else. That’s certainly not how it feels, but the math doesn’t lie.

For all the talk about how tough he is to get out with two strikes, the truth is that Bichette has hit just .188, with a .225 on-base percentage and .241 slugging percentage, in two-strike counts this season, with no home runs.

He battles, absolutely, and is among the best in the game at fouling off two-strike pitches. But despite that, Bichette came into Sunday’s game ranked 105th in the major leagues in pitches per plate appearance at 3.79. Marcus Semien tops the Jays at 4.12, 27th overall. Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. is 110th at 3.74. The major-league leader, Yoan Moncada of the Chicago White Sox, averages 4.41 pitches seen per plate appearance.

Hitters in general aren’t very good with two strikes, almost no matter who they are, but Bichette’s .466 OPS in two-strike counts is below the major-league average of .497 for this season. The great battles aren’t leading to even average results.

What jumped out to me Sunday, though, was the sixth inning at-bat when Bichette showed some strike-zone discipline against rookie Tyler Wells and got himself ahead in the count, 3-0, but then swung at ball four.

It was a fastball off the plate outside, and granted, Bruce Dreckman had an awful day calling balls and strikes, but it was a pitch that there was absolutely no reason to swing at. Even if it had been called a strike, Bichette would still have been in a great hitters’ count. If he had made contact, sure, he might have hit a line drive to right field, but he was likelier to foul it off, which he did.

It’s part of a pattern, though. Bichette fouled off ball three and then, later, ball four in the first inning. He eventually singled. He fouled off a couple of pitches that were off the plate in his second at-bat, as well, and fouled off ball four twice in that final at-bat.

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It’s obviously more forgivable to expand the strike zone a bit with two strikes and foul off pitches that might get you rung up, even if they’re not strikes, but the fact that Bichette is getting himself in those counts so often — he has been in a two-strike count in than half of his plate appearances — is creating this sort of “battle at the plate” vortex that he finds himself in again and again.

What also stands out, of course, is that when Bichette doesn’t let the count get to two strikes, his slash line this season is .392/.471/.755.

There’s no question the young shortstop is a good hitter. Chances are he’ll be going to the first of many all-star games next month. One hopes that more plate discipline will come with time. He’s only 23, after all, with less than one full season’s worth of games under his belt at the major-league level.

It’s just that if he made one little tweak and chased pitches off the plate a little less often — even though he’s been fouling them off as opposed to swinging through them — he could go from good to great.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star and the host of the baseball podcast Deep Left Field. Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness