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The Blue Jays are moving on from Bo Bichette.
Wednesday was a bittersweet day of emotions in Toronto, as a longtime, beloved Blue Jays shortstop appeared in public for the first time as a member of the New York Mets. Bichette took questions from New York media just hours after finalizing his three-year, $126 million contract with the Mets.
Bichette’s press conference must have been particularly grating to the Blue Jays and their fans, because Bichette claimed that he chose the Mets because “my first priority is winning, and obviously this organization is doing everything it can to do that.”
It seemed an odd statement from the former shortstop on a Blue Jays team that came two outs from winning the World Series last season and has doled out $337 million worth of contracts to free agents this offseason to make the team even better.
At the same time, the Blue Jays made it clear that they are now focused on the future of their shortstop position, issuing an announcement that will mark a significant milestone in the development of their 2023 first-round draft pick.
No. 3 Prospect Gets Look With Big League Club
With the 20th overall pick in that draft, the Blue Jays selected then-17-year-old shortstop Arjun Nimmala out of Strawberry Crest High School in Dover, Florida — only about one hour east of Toronto’s spring training facility in Dunedin.
In addition to making Nimmala the highest-drafted first-generation Indian-American in the history of not only MLB but any major U.S. sport, the Blue Jays handed the 6-foot-1, 190-pounder a $3 million signing bonus.
Now, after just two full minor league seasons in which he rose to the High-A level Vancouver Canadians in the Blue Jays system, Toronto announced Wednesday that Nimmala has been invited to the major league squad’s spring training camp.
Nimmala is currently ranked as the No. 3 overall prospect in the Blue Jays’ system and the 68th-ranked prospect in all of baseball, according to the MLB Pipeline ratings.
Nine prospects ranked in the organization’s top 30 who are not already on the team’s 40-man roster, including Nimmala, received the coveted invites.
One of ‘Game’s Most Interesting Prospects’
Though Nimmala is not expected to have a serious chance to make the Blue Jays’ 26-man major league roster, the spring training invitation will serve as a golden opportunity for the young prospect to demonstrate to manager John Schneider and the Toronto coaching staff how well he can compete against the highest level of competition he has ever faced, just three years removed from high school.
According to the scouting site Perfect Game, Nimmala was the top-rated high school prospect in the state of Florida in 2023. MLB Pipeline rated him No. 11 in that year’s draft class, and two years later in a new scouting report declared that the shortstop had “cemented his place among the game’s most interesting prospects.”
In a scouting report shortly after the 2023 draft, Pipeline said that Nimmala “brings serious power potential, especially for his age and position, and should benefit from the Blue Jays’ new player development complex as much as anyone.
“With the potential to be the first player of Indian descent in the history of Major League Baseball, Nimmala immediately becomes one of the most interesting — and talented — young players in the Blue Jays organization.”
Blue Jays fans could get their first look at Nimmala in game action on Feb. 21 when the Blue Jays host the Philadelphia Phillies to open their spring training schedule at TD Ballpark in Dunedin.
Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering Japan Pro Baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin
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