Collette Calls: Bichette's 2020 Outlook

I threw up a poll on Twitter the other day to take the temperature of followers to see whether they thought Bo Bichette's 2020 ADP would end up being even higher than what we witnessed with Adalberto Mondesi this year. I was honestly surprised by how close the final results were:

There appears to be a heavy dose of recency bias given that Mondesi's ADP at the peak of draft season was 41. However, the more surprising result here is that 52 percent of the voters believe Bichette is a top-40 player. Thanks to the work @smada_bb does online, we have some early ADP from five leagues FanGraphs' Justin Mason has put together for early mock drafts (#2EarlyMocks). The folks participating in those drafts do not agree with the voters as his current ADP is 69, going as high 58 and as low as 79 in the five drafts so far as the 15th shortstop off the board. Mondesi currently has a ADP of 21 and has been the fifth shortstop off the board. Gleyber Torres is currently the player occupying the 40th overall ADP spot on the draft board, sandwiched in between Jonathan Villar and Blake Snell.

What would Bichette have to do to close the nearly 30-spot gap between his current ADP in a sample of size of n=5 and where 176 voters currently see him as a top 40 player?

If we were to combine Bichette's minor league and major league numbers, he would have 18 home runs, 19 stolen bases, 63 runs scored, and 50 runs driven in. Those numbers, and his batting average, would put him in line with what Tommy Pham has done this season. Pham is $15 in standard mixed league formats. It should not be overlooked that Bichette just turned 21 in the middle of this summer and has looked exceedingly well at the major league level as one of the youngest players in the league. 

Let's start with his speed. By straight sprint speed, Bichette is in the 84th percentile. If you have watched him play, that score honestly feels a bit low, but StatCast only seemingly lies about projected distance on home runs (it doesn't). Speed is but one part of stealing bases, which is ultimately going to determine how high Bichette's value can climb in fantasy baseball. He had 32 steals last year in Double-A New Hampshire, but was also caught 11 times. He has 19 this season, but has also been caught 9 times. He is still learning the finer parts of the running game, but since he doesn't have 98th percentile sprint speed as Mondesi has, his margin for error is more narrow. He will have to get better at reading the moves of the pitchers in order to get better jumps on his steals, and that kind of thing only comes with the experience at the major league level he sorely lacks.  Charlie Montoyo, his manager, was raised in the Tampa Bay system which put an emphasis on the running game and using it aggressively, so I do not expect them to slow down Bichette in any way, but they are also not going to continue to let him run into outs. 

Bichette does not yet have enough batted ball data in StatCast to give us percentile rankings of his performance, so we'll have to take a look at the leaderboards to see where Bichette ranks amongst all batters with at least 100 batted balls:

• Average Exit Velocity — 49th of 378
• Percentage of Hard Hit Balls (95+ mph) — 17th of 378
• Average distance — 273rd of 378

Bichette has no issues hitting the ball hard as he has done so with increasingly regularity upon his promotion to the majors. The 1.25 GB/FB ratio is not holding him back much either, but he could use some more loft to some of his batted ball. It is impressive to watch him hit the ball with authority, both to his pull side as well as going the other way with the baseball as he did the other night in a 13-pitch at bat to lead off the game. 

This past offseason, I was firmly in Camp Pessimism with Mondesi. Mondesi has been a disappointment, both due to the time missed by injury and that he has failed to reach the lofty offensive totals people had in mind for him this year after what he flashed in the second half of the 2018 season. My fears with Mondesi were based on his overly aggressive style at the plate, and Bichette is not far from the same area. He currently walks a bit more and strikes outs a bit less than Mondesi did last year, but his 5 percent walk rate and 24 percent strikeout rate as a rookie is not exactly a safe area. His 13 percent swinging strike rate comes more from an approach looking to launch on pitches within the zone than him chasing pitches out of the zone. He has come out of his shoes looking to alter the outcome of a game with a single swing many times, but to be fair, he has punished his fair share of mistakes this year as well.

The one player that I cannot shake from my mind in thinking where Bichette could end up on the high end of things is Ketel Marte. Marte is enjoying a breakout season this year at the plate, which few outside of Todd Zola saw coming. It took Marte a few years to get there, but the talent was always there even if it was underutilized. 

Bichette clearly has a special hit tool and the ability to generate thunder off his bat with his aggressive approach at the plate. Rogers Centre, as well as the cozy dimensions with in the American League East, offer him plenty of friendly run environments in which to inflict damage upon pitchers. That said, we are also just one year removed from the lessons learned with overprojecting the offensive potential of Mondesi. We should not forget how enamored many were with Mondesi this time last year as they began their 2019 draft plans as you now begin to wind down this season and start planning out for 2020. If 52 percent of drafters take Bichette higher than they took Mondesi the year before, that is a win for the other 48 percent. The potential to be a top 40 players is certainly within his skills, but the possibility of finishing outside the top 100 is very much within his range of possible outcomes in 2020 if the league takes advantage of his aggressiveness at the plate with increased exposure to pitchers figuring him out.