11:17am: Bichette is expected to play third base for the Mets, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reports. The contract also includes full no-trade protection, per Heyman.
11:03am: The Mets and free agent infielder Bo Bichette are in agreement on a three-year contract, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic. He’ll be guaranteed a hefty $126MM on that short-term pact, per Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Bichette can opt out after the first and second season of the contract, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic adds. He also picks up a $5MM bonus if he exercises one of those opt-outs, per Rosenthal. There’s no deferred money in the contract, which is still pending a physical. Bichette is represented by Vayner Sports.
It’s a stunning and near-immediate pivot for a Mets club that is barely 12 hours from losing out on Kyle Tucker, the market’s top free agent who just last night went to the Dodgers after they outbid the Mets on a record-breaking short-term deal (four years, $240MM). The Mets reportedly put forth a four-year, $220MM offer to Tucker. Having missed on that big swing, they’ll pivot to the market’s next-best bat and next-best all-around free agent, bringing Bichette in on a $42MM annual value that ties Zack Wheeler for the sixth-largest in MLB history.
In landing Bichette, the Mets are not only quickly pivoting from their Tucker pursuit in arguably the most notable way possible — they’re also keeping him from a division rival that had emerged as the ostensible frontrunner. Bichette met with the Phillies earlier this week, and reporting since that time had suggested that the Phils might be the team most apt to sign him on the long-term pact he’d coveted. Instead, Bichette lands a mammoth annual value that could grow even further (via that $5MM bonus) if he opts out and returns to the market next winter, ahead of what would still be only his age-29 season.
Though the fit isn’t necessarily as clean as Tucker would have been for a Mets club that already had a deep infield and was lacking in outfielders, Bichette adds a clear plus bat to manager Carlos Mendoza’s lineup. The 27-year-old (28 in March) has been a well above-average hitter in all but one of his seven major league campaigns — a 2024 season that was cut short by multiple calf injuries and a broken finger being the lone exception.
Bichette hit just .225/.277/.322 in 80 games during that awful 2024 campaign. He not only bounced back in 2025 but turned in arguably the best performance of his career on a rate basis, slashing .311/.357/.483 with 18 home runs in 628 plate appearances. By measure of wRC+ (134), it was Bichette’s best season since his late call-up during the 2019 campaign (MLB’s juiced-ball season).
Even on its surface, Bichette’s 2025 season looks excellent. It doesn’t tell the tale of his finish, though, which had both positives and one very obvious negative. Bichette actually had a tepid start to his 2025 campaign. Although the underlying batted-ball data through his first month-plus was strong, he hit just .275/.316/.363 through the first week of May. From that point forth, however, Bichette caught fire. Over his next 457 plate appearances, he laid waste to opposing pitchers at a .325/.372/.528 clip. That was 50% better than league-average, by measure of wRC+, and even that doesn’t fully do justice to Bichette’s jaw-dropping summer; over his final 238 plate appearances, the second-generation All-Star went supernova with a .381/.437/.591 slash (187 wRC+).
Unfortunately for both Bichette and the Blue Jays, that previously mentioned “very obvious negative” struck in early September. Bichette suffered a sprained posterior cruciate ligament in his knee and missed the remainder of the regular season. He was also inactive for the early rounds of postseason play, only returning in the World Series. Bichette was clearly hobbled during the Fall Classic, limping to first base with ’88 Gibson-esque speed when putting the ball in play and displaying a lack of range at a new position: second base. Bichette’s shortstop glovework has been panned for years, and the Jays took the downtime as an opportunity to shift the defensively superior Andres Gimenez over to shortstop in his absence.
Despite the clearly injured knee, Bichette’s bat didn’t miss a beat in the World Series. He went 8-for-23 with seven singles and a titanic three-run homer off Shohei Ohtani in Game 7 of the World Series. Had the Jays’ bullpen managed to hold the lead, that would-be game-winning blast would have trailed only Joe Carter’s walk-off blast in franchise lore. Of course, that’s not how the game turned out, but Bichette’s 442-foot bomb still served to further underscore that even at less than 100%, he was a clear impact bat.
Bichette now carries a lifetime .294/.337/.469 batting line with him to Queens. He’s been 20-35% better than an average hitter every season of his career with the exception of that 2024 outlier, and this past season’s 14.5% strikeout rate was the lowest of his career. He couples those plus-plus contact skills with above-average power and high-end batted-ball data; Bichette averaged 91 mph off the bat this past season (72nd percentile), and his 48.8% hard-hit rate sat in the 83rd percentile of big league hitters.
The question for Bichette and the Mets is how well he can handle a move to third base. His shortstop deficiencies were largely due to sub-par range. He doesn’t have a plus throwing arm necessarily, but it’s closer to average — at least in terms of the average velocity on his throws, as measured by Statcast — than was the case with his bottom-of-the-scale lateral movement. Bichette averaged 82.3 mph on his throws across the diamond last year — below par in MLB but still an upgrade over the man he’ll be replacing at the hot corner, Brett Baty (81.2 mph). Bichette may not be a plus defender at third, but even average defense coupled with his bat and good health would result in All-Star output.
Baty could now bounce between multiple positions. He’s played second base and left field in the past, and the Mets would surely be open to experimenting with him at first base, too. The designated hitter slot provides more opportunities for all. It’s a similar range of possibilities to the one faced by Jorge Polanco, who inked a two-year, $40MM deal last month. Polanco will reportedly be used extensively at first base and designated hitter despite having virtually no prior first base experience.
For a team that has preached run prevention for much of the offseason, lining up with Bichette at third base and Polanco/Baty at first probably isn’t how they drew things up originally, but the offseason is a layered beast that rarely unfolds in a way that aligns with even the best-laid plans. Even if the Mets’ infield defense (and outfield defense, for that matter) is lacking, it’ll be solid up the middle (thanks to Francisco Lindor and Marcus Semien) and ought to be a highly productive offensive unit — particularly if Semien’s bat can bounce back at all.
Of course, the addition of Bichette also makes a potential trade of Baty — and several other infielders — more likely. Clubs seeking third base help include the Mariners, Angels and Pirates (as explored at length yesterday), among others. Any could show interest in Baty, Mark Vientos, Luisangel Acuña and/or Ronny Mauricio. Acuña, Vientos and Mauricio have all reportedly been available throughout the offseason anyhow. Some form of move seems likely at this point, especially when considering that both Acuña and Vientos are out of minor league options and looking to bounce back from poor seasons.
From a payroll vantage point, the Bichette contract is all the more staggering. Not only is the $42MM annual value the sixth-largest ever, it’s also only a fraction of what the Mets will actually have to pay due to this signing. New York was already on the cusp of the top tier of luxury penalization. Bichette catapults them $33MM north of that final cutoff point, per RosterResource’s estimates. They’ll pay a 95% tax on the first roughly $9MM of his annual value and a full-freight 110% tax on the remaining $33MM. Assuming an even distribution of his $126MM over the three-year term, the Mets would be paying more than $86MM for Bichette in 2026 alone. If he triggers that $5MM bonus upon opting out next winter, that’d also be subject to a 110% tax, bringing the Mets’ total bill on Bichette to about $97MM for just one year.
More to come.
