With the news that the Toronto Blue Jays have signed third baseman Kazuma Okamoto out of the NPB, speculation quickly followed about the future of their long-time shortstop, Bo Bichette. The Blue Jays still have the money and the will to ink Bichette to a long-term contract if he fits into their long term plans, but it\u2019s certainly possible that Okamoto\u2019s addition makes him less of a priority. That may open up the field somewhat for other potential suitors. There\u2019s nothing to suggest that Detroit will be one of them, but if the other top free agents begin to sign it\u2019s at least plausible that Bichette\u2019s options will start narrowing if he\u2019s still on the board a month from now.<\/p>\n
Maybe the Tigers could follow the Red Sox path to Alex Bregman last year and swoop in late with a shorter term pillow contract? Yeah, probably not, but we\u2019ll take a look anyway.<\/p>\n
So since I\u2019ve begged, badgered, and bargained for the Tigers to sign Bregman so much, and posts continue to pop up from fans around the internet asking about Bichette, it\u2019s only fair to give him some consideration. Certainly he\u2019d be a boost to the offense. It\u2019s just hard to see the Tigers doing much of anything beyond tweaking the fringes of the roster the rest of this offseason. Shelling out $200 million or more for a player who isn\u2019t exactly a perfect fit for their positional needs feels like a pipedream.<\/p>\n
That lack of a fit comes from the fact that Bichette is tough sell at the shortstop position right now. He\u2019s still only 27 years old, and but he\u2019s had a flurry of minor injuries to his knees and quad over the past two seasons, including a left PCL strain in September caused by a collision. That injury shut him down until his return in the Jays ALCS victory over the Mariners. Even worse his defensive numbers were already near career lows before that injury occurred. That\u2019s part of the issue for the Blue Jays, who would like to play Andres Gimenez as their usual shortstop and move Bichette to second. The problem is that they have several other options there, and now Okamoto presumably in the mix at third base.<\/p>\n
The key selling points for Bichette are his bat and his relative youth. Hitting free agency this early is uncommon, and sets him up to expect a deal of seven or eight years duration, whereas someone like Alex Bregman was only hunting a six-year term last year and likely again this offseason. There are some similarities between those two as hitters. Both are right-handed hitters who don\u2019t strike out much and are typically good for 20+ HR power with strong batting averages. Bichette isn\u2019t remotely in Bregman\u2019s league in terms of plate discipline and tends to get himself out chasing pitches he can\u2019t drive, but he still puts the bat on the ball quite a lot even when fooled.<\/p>\n
Bichette\u2019s O-swing, or chase percentage, in 2025 was a whopping 33.8 percent and that was the best mark of his career by several points. Bregman\u2019s was 18.8 percent, by contrast. If Bichette could learn to take more pitches and hunt for better ones to drive, there\u2019s still a chance he could develop into one of the better pure hitters in the game because he does have elite bat to ball skills and plenty of pop. Bichette struck out just 14.1 percent of the time in 2025, while his career average is closer to 19.4 percent. So perhaps there\u2019s a sign of a little more discipline developing as he enters his late 20\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Whether he can continue to improve those marks or not, Bichette is a career .294 hitter who posts above average on-base percentages, and tends to crack around 20 home runs per season with plenty of extra base hits as well. He\u2019s a good hitter and possibly one who is still maturing into a better approach. The real debatable point with Bichette is his physical condition. He won\u2019t be 28 until May, so it\u2019s not like he\u2019s guaranteed to be in decline. It\u2019s possible that he puts the injuries behind him and recovers a little of his footspeed. In that case he\u2019s probably still capable of playing slightly below average defense at the shortstop position, which would be plenty considering his bat.<\/p>\n
Given all this, it\u2019s understandable that there\u2019s been some friction between Bichette and the Blue Jays over the last two seasons. It\u2019s hard to know how much of that is media smoke vs. fire, but Bichette had reason to expect a major extension offer from the Blue Jays, and that apparently never arrived. He signed a three-year deal to cover his arbitration years, but no extension offer prior to free agency was ever made public. A contract in the $250 million range would have been pretty reasonable for him, and he\u2019s probably looking for something like that this offseason. The market doesn\u2019t seem quite that optimistic for him, however.<\/p>\n
If reports were accurate, the Tigers were willing to pay Alex Bregman nearly $30 million a year over a six-year deal last offseason. That continues to vaguely define the upper level of Scott Harris and Jeff Greenberg\u2019s payroll ceiling as something like $180 million. If they suddenly decided to make a splash here, Bichette would push them well beyond that in 2026.<\/p>\n
There is plenty of payroll relief coming in the years ahead, but much of it will be absorbed in arbitration raises and in building up the starting rotation in 2027 and beyond. It will take some smart, expensive work to reconstruct the rotation beyond Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize, and Jack Flaherty all hitting free agency at season\u2019s end. Still there\u2019s at least some argument that if they were interested in Bregman at age 31, signing a player like Bichette, who is a half step down from Bregman in quality but several years younger, might be an alternate option if he doesn\u2019t land the massive deal he\u2019s looking for this offseason.<\/p>\n
Beyond payroll, the other big issue with the notion is simply trying to fit Bichette into the Tigers\u2019 infield group. The Tigers have Gleyber Torres playing second in 2026, and a whole host of other players and prospects who are best suited to that position, from Colt Keith, to Kevin McGonigle, to lesser prospects like Hao-Yu Lee and possibly Max Anderson. Currently, Keith is the front runner to man third base in 2026, presumably with some assistance from Matt Vierling. That leaves shortstop up to Javier B\u00e1ez and Zach McKinstry, with the slim chance that Trey Sweeney has something to contribute in call-ups from Toledo.<\/p>\n
To add Bichette, someone, probably one of P\u00e9rez, Meadows, or Vierling, would end up back in Triple-A. That would burn Meadows last option, while P\u00e9rez still has two of them, and Vierling has one remaining as well. Meanwhile, B\u00e1ez would presumably play a mix of SS\/3B\/CF, particularly against left-handed pitching and as a defensive replacement. McKinstry and Keith would then handle third base, with a bit of Vierling mixed in perhaps. Jahmai Jones serves a very particular role, and is out of options, so probably he\u2019s a lock at least to start the season.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lot of debate about how good Kevin McGonigle will be at the shortstop position, and the Tigers got him a little work at third in the Arizona Fall League in October, but the consensus is that something close to average defense is the absolute ceiling. The Tigers might not mind that, and McGonigle has plenty of development left in at him as a 21-year-old with less than 200 games in pro ball. He\u2019s regarded as a very smart player with a lot of drive to improve. Certainly he can\u2019t be a mess at the position and stay there, but as long as he cleans up his actions, the double pumps and extra steps before releasing a throw in particular, and continues to develop, he should make the routine plays and turn the double play well enough to do as well as the Tigers\u2019 other options at the position.<\/p>\n
Bichette is similar to McGonigle as a defender in value. He\u2019s more efficient in his actions and with much more experience, but with diminishing range cutting into his value as a shortstop. As a result he\u2019s trending in the opposite direction while McGonigle should continue to improve. Bichette was a -12 DRS in 2025, but over the two years prior combined he was still roughly average as a shortstop. Unless he\u2019s able to recapture a little more athleticism, his days as an average defender are over, but he can probably perform better than he did last year for the Jays.<\/p>\n
The best argument for Bichette is that the Tigers don\u2019t have anyone else more likely to put up roughly average shortstop defense anyway other than B\u00e1ez himself. And even after a rebound year for B\u00e1ez, he still finished with a below average year at the plate and is best used against lefties and as a late game defensive replacement at shortstop. Until Bryce Rainer potentially arrives, or Jordan Yost behind him, a process that is several years from fruition even if all goes well, the Tigers just aren\u2019t going to put a homegrown plus defender on the left side of the infield. The only real hope for a strong two-way player is McKinstry continuing to hit like he did in 2025, which also seems pretty unlikely as he enters his early 30\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Even if the Tigers would consider Bichette, the other big problem with the idea is that while Alex Bregman had interest in playing for the Tigers and a long and fruitful history with manager A.J. Hinch, Bichette has no real ties to the Tigers\u2019 organization. There is nothing to suggest the Tigers are interested in him either, so right now, the odds of him becoming a Tiger seem non-existent.<\/p>\n
However, should the Blue Jays move on, there\u2019s at least a chance that Bichette just doesn\u2019t get the kind of offers he\u2019s looking for. Kyle Tucker, Bregman, Cody Bellinger, Bichette, and Eugenio Suarez are all yet to sign, and the teams that land those other payers will probably be out of the Bichette sweepstakes. In that case, there\u2019s at least a slim chance that the Tigers could roll up later in the offseason with the right combination of dollars per year and options on a short deal that wouldn\u2019t tie them into a really long-term commitment.<\/p>\n
In that narrow window of possibility, the Tigers could consider that they have roughly $80 million coming off the books beyond the 2026 season. Currently, the club looks disinterested in making any kind of a big move, but there is a lot of offseason left, and plenty of a big-time free agents still to sign that could alter the market and just maybe, convince the Tigers to do something. It just seems far more likely that they\u2019re going to go into the season as is, and bet on McGonigle as their offensive upgrade as the season progresses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the news that the Toronto Blue Jays have signed third baseman Kazuma Okamoto out of the NPB,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[5,147,53,39441,2583,4,594],"class_list":{"0":"post-507829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-tigers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-tigers","11":"tag-detroit-tigers-analysis","12":"tag-detroittigers","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-tigers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115848291716500472","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}