The Toronto Blue Jays’ first season after losing Bo Bichette in free agency to the New York Mets wasn’t a good one.
A year after Bichette helped the Blue Jays reach Game 7 of the World Series, this team missed the postseason entirely. Technically, they held onto mathematical hope until the final week of the season, but Toronto was sledding uphill for most of the season.
Bichette’s season with the Mets didn’t go much better. He took a big step back from his 2025 performance, and New York was even further out of the playoff picture than the Blue Jays.
It all sets up for a fascinating offseason, because Bichette’s three-year, $126 million deal with the Mets actually has an opt-out built in after each season. If he wants to be a free agent again this offseason, Bichette can be.
That doesn’t mean the Blue Jays would bring him back, but it does mean Bichette’s next steps are still to be determined. He’s not guaranteed to play with the Mets in 2027. He’s got a decision to make.
And there’s some new intel on what Bichette might do.
Bo Bichette Update
SNY’s Chelsea Janes, a plugged-in MLB insider, put out a mailbag article on Wednesday in which she was asked what she thinks Bichette might do.
Janes’ short answer was that she thinks Bichette will opt-in and stay on his current contract with the Mets. But she had plenty more to say and explain.
“My read – and it is truly just my read, because no one has said anything to me definitively – is that Bichette will opt in,” Janes writes. “I say that for a few reasons, one of which is as simple as he did not look like a player saying his goodbyes when he left Washington on the last day of the season. Plus, that day, both Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor spoke like they expected to have him back more than simply hoped for it. But reading into things like that is risky and certainly is not enough to say anything for sure.”
It also seems that even though Bichette and the Mets didn’t have a good year, they liked their time together.
“The other evidence I have is that people around the Mets – so people who spend time around the team daily but are not necessarily in decision-making capacities to know first-hand – also seem fairly convinced Bichette will stay,” Janes writes. “He has spoken glowingly of Andy Green. He seems to want to prove he can succeed in New York. And frankly, he isn’t going to get anywhere near the average annual value on another deal they gave him on this one. He seemed to settle into the clubhouse down the stretch, much like everyone did. So read into that what you will.”
That line about the money that Janes throws in there is probably the most relevant piece here, too.
Bo Bichette Salary
If Bichette stays on his current deal, he’d make $42 million in the 2027 season.
Opting-out does include a $5 million buyout (which accounts for two season and $84 million remaining), so Bichette would still have to get about $40 million per year on a new free agent deal to make it financially logical to opt-out.
If he really didn’t like the Mets, Bichette could still choose to leave and start anew elsewhere.
But a year after leaving the Blue Jays, it’s currently looking unlikely that Bichette would leave his next team this quickly.
Blue Jays Learn Bo Bichette’s Likely MLB Future