Blue Jays star shortstop Bo Bichette suffered a right knee injury last night, and his prognosis figures to weigh heavily on the club’s trade deadline plans.
In the third inning of the club’s eventual loss to Baltimore, Bichette hit a potential double down the right field line, rounding first and then slamming on the brakes when right fielder Anthony Santander got the ball in quickly.
As you can see in the linked video, Bichette’s injury was significant enough that he gave himself up between first and second base. He was able to walk off the field on his own accord but with a limp.
As The Athletic’s Kaitlyn McGrath reported last night, the Jays are currently calling the injury “right knee discomfort.”
It stands to reason the club might keep further information under wraps until after today’s 5 p.m. central time trade deadline so as not to reduce their leverage in talks for some sort of help at shortstop.
The Blue Jays currently hold the last wild-card spot in the American League.
Bichette, the AL leader in batting average and hits, is irreplaceable. He’s rarely missed a game in the last three seasons and was well on his way to a five-WAR season.
Certainly, Jays GM Ross Atkins cannot go out and find another player of Bichette’s caliber. Santiago Espinal replaced Bichette in the game and represents the short-term solution. MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson ran through the Jays’ Triple-A shortstop situation, which does not present a clear replacement.
Matheson throws out a pair of potentially-available names in Tim Anderson of the White Sox and Paul DeJong of the Cardinals. As McGrath put it, adding a right-handed bat to the lineup was already “a huge priority” for Toronto, but it’s possible adding a middle infielder could jump to the top of the list. The team has used Whit Merrifield, Espinal, and Cavan Biggio at second base, all of whom are capable of playing elsewhere on the diamond.
Plenty of middle infielders have already been on the move in the past week, including Jace Peterson, Nicky Lopez, Amed Rosario and Kiké Hernandez. Most second basemen likely to be available are hitting quite poorly this year, such as Kolten Wong, Tony Kemp and Aledmys Diaz. Elvis Andrus is capable of playing shortstop, but he too is struggling with the bat.
More must-reads: