Tigers’ trade offer lands Bo Bichette from Blue Jays

Tigers receive: Bo Bichette

Blue Jays receive: Thayron Liranzo (MLB No. 85), Cris Rodriguez (Tigers No. 8)

With Javier Baez having made the move to the outfield, Trey Sweeney has stepped up at shortstop for the Tigers. The former first-round pick has impressed with the glove, but he has been arguably the weakest line in Detroit’s lineup with the bat. Sweeney is batting .230 with four home runs.

Bichette would serve as a huge upgrade at shortstop, and he could slide over to second base when need be, too. Bichette has a .277 batting average and seven home runs. Still just 27 years old, Bichette has twice made the All-Star Game. The shortstop slumped last year, which led to a down season for the Blue Jays as a whole. He has three times batted above .300 over the course of a season, though, and he appears to be back on track.

With five top-100 prospects, the Tigers have one of the best farm systems in baseball, so they have prospects to spare. Because Bichette is a rental, the team would only have to send one of their top 100 prospects, though. Detroit needs to go all in. Although they’ve been ahead of the pack for the entirety of this season, the other powerhouse organizations are coming for them. The Tigers should make multiple trades, and a move for Bichette is one of them that makes sense.

Will the Blue Jays be sellers and trade Bo Bichette?

The Blue Jays are in a tough spot. They play in the American League East, which is arguably the best division in baseball. Surpassing the Yankees in wins will likely serve to be impossible, and the team is close in the standings to the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox. Even the Baltimore Orioles, who struggled early, have started to turn things around.

The Blue Jays are two games above .500, though, which makes the idea of selling a hard pill to swallow. The Blue Jays also wouldn’t want to risk losing Bichette in free agency for nothing. The team invested in Vladimir Guerrero Jr. with one of the biggest contracts in the sport recently, so they need to figure out if Bichette can help make that investment worthwhile, or if the team would be better off receiving a trade haul for him that can bolster the roster in the future.

As of now, the Blue Jays might be best to neither sell nor buy in the trade market. A potential extension still looms for Bichette, and Toronto will know a lot more about his future with the team and their standings compared to their AL East peers when the trade deadline is closer.