The offseason episodes of C’s Chat begins with 2024 Vancouver Canadians pitcher Bo Bonds.
The Gainesville, Florida native was a standout on the slope at Suwanee High School where he compiled 17 victories over 25 decisions with a 1.73 earned run average over three years, striking out 247 batters over 157-2/3 innings. In his 2019 senior season, he went 9-2 with a 0.94 ERA.
Bonds headed to junior college at Chipola Junior College where former Blue Jays outfielder José Bautista, catcher Russell Martin and pitcher Bowden Francis once played. A strikeout rate of 14.7 batters per nine innings, thanks to 96 whiffs in 58-2/3 innings in relief over the 2020 and 2021 campaigns, got the attention of the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns and that is where Bonds transferred to in 2022.
The Ks continued to pile up for Bonds at the Division I level as he sat down 83 batters over 55 innings and posting a record of 5-3 with a 3.11 ERA. He helped the Ragin’ Cajuns win the Sun Belt Conference tournament by pitching 4-2/3 innings against Georgia Southern in the championship final. Bonds supplied another 14 outs in relief and was the winning pitcher in their NCAA Regional opener against the number-two seed TCU. The bad news was he left the game due to injury, paying the price for his 94-pitch outing by undergoing Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.
Baseball America credited Bonds’ success in college “thanks to an extremely lively 91-93 mph fastball. He manages to get above hitters bats, although he’s not always particularly pitch efficient. His fastball/curve combination will likely work best in pro ball in a relief role.”
Despite the injury, the Toronto Blue Jays selected Bonds in the 13th round of the 2022 MLB Draft on the recommendation of scout Chris Curtis. The righthander received a signing bonus of $125,000.
Bonds returned to the hill late in the 2023 season and made his professional debut with the Florida Complex League Blue Jays. He struck out the side to overcome a walk in a scoreless inning against the FCL Phillies on August 5. That was the first of three appearances he made that year.
The 2024 season started a bit late for Bonds as he was sent to the seven-day injured list on April 4 but would return to action with the Dunedin Blue Jays on April 22. He found his groove by stringing together five shutout appearances in June, recording his first two consecutive saves at Palm Beach on June 4 and June 7. In July, Bonds converted three straight saves which he punctuated with a four-strikeout effort, walking just one over 2-2/3 shutout innings at Lakeland on July 19. The month would end with a promotion to the Vancouver Canadians.
It was a memorable C’s debut for Bonds as he pitched a scoreless 10th inning and wound up with the win when the offence pushed across the walkoff run against Tri-City on August 1. He would record back-to-back wins with 2-2/3 innings of shutout ball with four punchouts against Eugene on August 10 and he fanned four more over three shutout innings at Spokane on August 17. Bonds finished the regular season with his first save thanks to a shutout ninth against Eugene on September 3 and picked up the W with a scoreless frame and a strikeout as the C’s walked off the Em’s on September 7. His regular season totals came in at four wins, one loss and one save with a 4.26 ERA and a 17-5 K/BB total in 12-2/3 innings.
Vancouver manager Brent Lavallee called upon Bonds to lock down Game 2 of the Northwest League Championship Series against Spokane and Bonds did just that as he put up a zero in the ninth with a strikeout to tie the best-of-five series on September 11.
Bonds would get the ball again in the late stages of Game 4 at Gonzaga Univeristy in Spokane and he supplied two shutout innings with three strikeouts. After a clean eighth, Bonds showed a lot of guile to get out of a bases-loaded jam with nobody out in the ninth thanks to a pair of punchouts to send the game into the 10th inning on September 14.
C’s Plus Baseball chatted with the 23-year-old Bonds during the team’s late-August homestand against Tri-City. This interview has been edited for clarity.
C’s Plus Baseball – You got drafted in the 13th round in 2022 out of Louisiana-Lafayette. What was your draft day experience like?
Bo Bonds – It was incredible, really. I mean, it’s always what you dream of as a kid, and for it to happen, to visually see it take place in my living room with my family around me, it was surreal. I can’t really put it into words. I can feel the feeling I had right now but I have no words how to describe it. It was just a sense of achievement, I guess, but I also knew I had a lot of work to do after that.
CPB – Did you have any idea it was going to be the Blue Jays who were going to draft you?
BB – Yeah, I had a pretty good idea. It was them and a couple of other teams, and they asked if I would go in that place and I said ‘Yeah’. They were the first team ever to show me interest, actually, way back in junior college. My first ever pro interest, it was the Blue Jays. And then it kind of came around during Louisiana and they made contact with me again. It was kind of like in the stars for me, I guess.
CPB – Let’s take it back to the very beginning. You’re from Florida. How did you get started in baseball?
BB – Well, I was born in Gainesville. I grew up in Live Oak, a very small town. A lot of people say that I’m country, a redneck. I guess that’s the thing around here, what they say. So, yeah, it was very, very small, but a very sports-oriented little town. I played baseball all my life. Ever since I could move around, I guess, I had a baseball. I started out as a shortstop and catcher, though. I didn’t start pitching until my 10th grade year of high school. I kind of figured out that I was throwing a little harder, and it kind of kept getting a little harder and harder, so I played shortstop and I pitched. I quit catching in 10th grade, and then I played short, and I pitched for the rest of my high school career, and then went to Chipola to pitch.
CPB – How did you wind up at Chipola?
BB – I had a few big names look at me, you know, like the D1s (Division 1 schools), they just showed a little interest. I guess they didn’t think that I was good enough to go play for them at that time. So I went down the road to Chipola. Great, great junior college, one of the best in the nation every year. I’m not saying anything bad about them. They helped my career greatly. And I had a great time at Chipola. I’m glad I went to Chipola first and not the big D-1 like everybody wants to go to. I feel like I developed myself and had a pretty good start to my career at Chipola. I kind of wanted to show them that you don’t have to really go to those, you know, Florida States (D1 schools) and whatnot to succeed.
CPB – You eventually do go to a D-1 school in Louisiana-Lafayette. What was your season like there?
BB – My coaching staff there was unbelievable. I have never had coaches like that. Matt Deggs and Seth Thibodeaux, those guys made me who I am today. Not even on the field, but off the field as well. The biggest thing was off the field. They taught me how to be a man. They got me closer in my walk with Christ. I can’t say good enough things about them and that program there. As for my career on the field, they did extraordinary things there too as well. I wouldn’t be in the spot I am today without those guys and my teammates there. That’s probably the biggest contributor to my career so far. Them and Daniel Tillman, my pitching coach and mental performance coach from back home.
CPB – Connor Cooke, who pitched at Louisiana-Lafayette the year before you did but I think he did make contact with you after you were drafted. How well have you gotten to know him?
BB – We see each other at the Complex and we chat. I haven’t played with him of course so it hasn’t been like a year-long thing, just in passing, we’ll have a conversation. He’s a great dude. When I got drafted, he reached out and we kind of talked. He gave me some insight about how pro ball works and everything like that and it was good to hear from a guy that’s already done it before. So, yeah, he was a big help in the beginning point as well.
CPB – You underwent Tommy John surgery as you were getting ready to become a pro ball player. What was that like trying to recover from that? I’m sure you got lots of advice but how big of a grind was it for you to get through that and finally get back on the mound again?
BB – I mean, it’s probably one of the hardest things I’ve done to this point in my life. Not only physically, but mentally it was excruciating. You got to throw to 90 feet today at 15 throws and that’s it. And then you see everyone else throwing in games, succeeding in games like where you should be and, you know, seeing everyone progress while you’re stuck on this strict, strict regimen. Everyone’s competing while I’m not being able to compete is very tough, and the physical part of it, I still have days where my arm, it doesn’t feel the greatest, but the trainers and everyone here have great plans, great recoveries, great regimens that they’ve put me on. And, you know, my arm has been great to this point. It’s felt really good. But, yeah, the biggest thing I was saying is the mental part. I think the mental part is even worse than the physical part. Like I mentioned before, my mental performance coach, Daniel Tillman, I credit my career to everyone but he helped me through the tough times through rehab, ever since high school, he’s been with me. Every time I’ve had a struggle or a hardship, I’ve gone to Daniel, and he’s put me right. I can’t say good enough things about him.
CPB – You finally did get back in the mound for a few innings last year. That had to have been a big relief for you to finally get over that hurdle and get back on the mound again?
BB – Yeah, last year, I think I got one inning last year at the very end on a pulled groin. It wasn’t my best outing but it was cool to see professional baseball and compete finally for that one inning. It gave me a little taste before the offseason. Gave me something to work for, I guess. It was good.
CPB – Speaking of the offseason, I’m sure you had a chance to go to the Player Development Complex to check out all the bells and whistles. What were your impressions of it when you first arrived there? Did you see anything like that before?
BB – No, never. I’ve never seen anything like the Blue Jays have. The incredible amount of money (put into the) facility with pitching labs, hitting labs, anything that you could think of, they have it. For someone not to develop here, it is pretty tough not to develop. Like I said, you literally think of it, they have it. I have so many phone videos and pictures in my phone of just everything that they have. It’s mind-blowing, really. On my first day walking in, I thought I got teleported into the future. It was crazy.
BB – I don’t know if you’re a big analytics guy or big numbers guy. Was there anything that maybe jumped out to you there?
BB – Daniel Tillman, he played professionally so he’s kind of taught me from 10th grade what my pitches do and how they move. When I got to the Blue Jays, they also helped me develop, and they fine-tuned it and let me know why I had the success I’ve had so far. They say that my fastball has got a lot of vert, induced vertical break, and it misses barrels. Cory Riordan, my pitching coach In Low-A, he taught me a slider, which went really good with my fastball. I had a big loopy curveball that worked in high school and a little bit in college but as the hitters progressed, the curveball regressed so it didn’t really pair well with the fastball. So Cory taught me that slider that went better with it and the deception of it was much better than the curveball. It worked well with the tunnel of my pitches. I kind of got a fastball that goes up and then something that goes down harder so it gets harder to differentiate the fastball in the slider so that’s kind of what I’ve learned so far to this point. Another thing with the metrics though, I try to stay away from it really. I mean, I’ll look at it here and there, but once you get into that rabbit hole of metrics, all my metrics suck today, then you go into the game, ‘Oh, I don’t have my best stuff today.’ Instead of just throwing and competing and getting after somebody, you kind of get the numbers in your head and it makes you get a little loopy sometimes. So I try to just stick with the competitiveness and the grit rather than the numbers and the results.
CPB – Now you’re saying it’s fastball and slider for you. Is that basically the two you’re sticking with or will you throw in the odd curveball?
BB – No, I still throw a fastball, curveball, slider, and changeup. I’ll throw the curveball in specific counts or whenever I think that I need to break it off. But I guess the go-to now is the fastball and the slider and then the changeup also. It kind of depends on the situation or the hitter and what they’ve done previously. There are a lot of factors that depend on it. You might not have a changeup that day. You might not feel it, so you go to the curveball, or you might not feel the curveball, you go to the changeup. It differs every day, really.
CPB – The fastball is a four-seam?
BB – Just a four-seam. Like I said, that vert fastball. I just try to keep it at the top of the zone, either (the hitter will) foul it off or swing and miss. If I miss a spot, they might hit it over the wall.
CPB – One thing I want to ask about your delivery. How did you come up with that delivery?
BB – Daniel (Tillman) in high school. I would watch videos of him throw and I wouldn’t necessarily imitate him exactly but he would help me with things that would benefit me. That high front side, the glove thing, it’s kind of like a timing mechanism. It’s like a catapult almost like as soon as the glove is at the top, then the ball in my arm is at the bottom, so once my glove goes down, my arm comes up. It’s a timing mechanism kind of thing for me, but everyone has said that it’s very deceptive or very herky-jerky kind of. So I guess it works in my favour. I don’t really use it as a gimmick. That’s just how I throw, I guess. It works out for me.
CPB – You started this year with Dunedin and got the call up to Vancouver. I know sometimes the coaches like to have fun when they announce players’ call-ups. Was there anything like that for you, or did they just give it to you straight?
BB – Yeah, Mayo (Dunedin manager José Mayorga) kind of played a joke on me. He called me into the office and was very stern. He kind of made it seem like I was in trouble a little bit about something with the bus, I think. And then at the end of it, he said, ‘Yeah, you’re getting called up.’ And it was a very surreal moment. Me and Irv Carter got called up at the same time. We both were in the office. So that was cool to be with my teammate and get the news that we did.
BB – You get here to Vancouver and your debut was a pretty memorable game. A game that you got the victory in. It was a walk-off victory. What do you remember about your first time here pitching at Nat Bailey Stadium?
BB – I’ll be honest with you, I don’t remember much about it at all. Whenever I throw in the games, I kind of lose reality, I guess. I’m so locked in, I get whatever. I remember the crowd was very loud, I remember the stomping of the stadium. But, yeah, I knew it was a big situation, a big opportunity for me. And I wanted to please my coaches and please my teammates and get the win for them.
CPB – How have you found it pitching here so far in the Northwest League? Has it been a really big step up from the Florida State League?
BB – Yeah, it’s definitely a different caliber of hitters. Not so much that they’re better. They just have better approaches, I think. They’ll spit on balls that, you know, in Low-A they might swing at or you mess up or miss a ball over the middle of the plate, they’re going to make you pay for it, while as maybe in Low-A, they might miss it or pop up or something. Like here, if you mess up, they’re going to let you know that you messed up. The approach really, I think, is the biggest change.
CPB – Did you have a favorite major league team growing up or a favorite pitcher or player?
BB – I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really much of a baseball watcher as a kid. I kind of just stayed outside. I like to hunt and fish so that was a big thing but if i had to choose, it would probably be someone like Spencer Strider or Joe Kelly. I like Joe Kelly. He’s intense—intense competitiveness, I guess. A smaller guy that, you know, is labelled an underdog, I guess, would be my kind of player.
CPB – Final question I have for you. The Canadians have five different uniforms—red, black, white, gray and blue. Do you have a favourite?
BB – I mean, the white on white is pretty spiffy. That’s a good-looking uni. I like the black one too, though. It’s either the red, white, or black. I can’t decide. Every time I put them on, I feel like I’m putting on a suit or something a bit fancy. It feels nice, that’s for sure. They’re nice threads.
Bo Bonds File
- Born – January 10, 2001 in Gainesville, Florida
- Height/Weight – 5-foot-11, 200 pounds
- Bats/Throws – Right/Right
- Uniform Numbers – Wore number 10 with Chipola Junior College in 2020 and 2021, wore number 2 with the University of Louisiana-Lafayette in 2022, wore number 37 with the Florida Complex League Blue Jays and the Dunedin Blue Jays in 2023 and wore number 5 with the Dunedin Blue Jays in 2024.
- Professional Debut – August 5, 2022, Florida Complex League Blue Jays against Florida Complex League Phillies.
- First Professional Strikeout – Raylin Heredia, FCL Phillies on August 5, 2022
- First Professional Win – May 25, 2024, Dunedin at Bradenton.
- First Professional Save – June 4, 2024, Dunedin at Palm Beach
- Mound Music – “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” by The Georgia Satellites.
- Twitter – @Bo_Bonds_2
- Instagram – @bo_bonds
- Fun Fact – Bonds wore number 2 with Louisiana-Lafayette, the same number 2022-2023 C’s pitcher Connor Cooke wore with the Ragin’ Cajuns from 2019-2021.
For more Bo Bonds content, check out this video right here.
A million thanks to C’s broadcaster Chris Georges and Bo Bonds for this instalment of C’s Chat.
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