The Toronto Blue Jays made it to Game 7 of the World Series with Bo Bichette on their roster. They didn’t make the playoffs without Bichette on their roster a year later.
That math, at least to some extent, adds up. Subtract a good player from a good team and the team becomes less good.
That talent, though, should go somewhere else and have a similar impact, right?
That’s certainly what the New York Mets were thinking when they signed Bichette last winter. They gave him a three-year, $126 million contract to come be the difference maker they were lacking.
In 2025, the Mets collapsed at the end of the season and barely missed the playoffs. With Bichette, they’d avoid such a late-season decline, right?
Well, not exactly. The Mets missed the playoff this season by much worse, and by a wider gap than the Blue Jays did.
Mets Miscalculations
Part of the problem for the Mets’ math, if you want to call it that, is they didn’t just make a Bichette move.
Nothing would’ve been guaranteed if they kept all of last season’s roster and just added Bichette, but it would at least feel straightforward as far as figuring out who was responsible for what outcomes in 2026.
But instead, the Mets made a ton of changes. They let Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Edwin Diaz and Jeff McNeil go. They brought aboard Freddy Peralta, Marcus Semien, Luis Robert Jr., Jorge Polanco, Devin Williams and Luke Weaver.
By some different measures, the Mets may have had a more talented team, but teams don’t win on talent alone.
Somehow, the Mets lost some of their identity, and they never really found a new one.
Bichette’s Downturn From Blue Jays
Another factor, of course, is that Bichette didn’t have as good a season.
He started horrifically and only slowly returned to form. His season-end numbers were worse than his average Toronto season by quite a bit.
There could be an element to slow-adjustment to a new place. It could also simply be bad baseball luck, which happens to even some of the game’s best players.
But for whatever reason, the Mets didn’t get the Blue Jays version of Bichette. They got something lesser.
That changed the entire equation. The Mets thought they were plugging in a top-notch player, and that with Bichette might come the good fortune the Blue Jays had a year ago.
But instead, Bichette’s value declined for some unknown reason, and he couldn’t provide the same boost to the new side of the equation he found himself on.
Adding Bichette made sense. The outcome, though, proved that sports aren’t simply played on paper.
Blue Jays’ Bo Bichette Commutative Property Doesn’t Add Up