If Bo Bichette decides to walk away from the final two years of his contract, the Mets would be staring at a problem that doesn’t have many clean answers.
The trade deadline already stripped away a lot of the obvious offseason business. Freddy Peralta, Brooks Raley, and Clay Holmes are among the pending free agents who were moved, which leaves New York with only a handful of real decisions to make once the season ends.
Two of those decisions involve options, including Luis Robert Jr.’s $20 million option for 2027. Bichette, though, is different - he gets to choose his own path.
That possibility matters because Bichette’s season has been uneven. For most of the year, he hasn’t looked like the kind of middle-order bat the Mets hoped for, hitting .264 with 11 home runs, 60 RBI, and a .688 OPS in 119 games.
The early months were rough. But over the last 72 games, the picture has improved: .298/.337/.449, with 14 doubles, a triple, nine home runs, 41 RBI, 85 hits, and 38 runs scored.
That late surge is where the real tension begins. Bichette has said at different points during the season that he wants to stay, but the market will have a say in this too.
The position player pool in free agency is thin, and names like Jazz Chisholm Jr. are having down years. If Bichette closes strong, he could decide to gamble on himself, leave $84 million on the table, and see whether a stronger finish can unlock a longer-term deal elsewhere.
With no qualifying offer attached, that market could get interesting fast if he starts looking like his old self again.
For the Mets, the internal fallback is messy. If Bichette opts out, Brett Baty could slide back to third base, where he belongs naturally, and the team would at least have a cheap answer there. The catch is that Baty has been underwhelming, batting .215 with eight home runs, 38 RBI, and a .616 OPS in 109 games.
That move would also push Marcus Semien into a larger role at second base, and that’s not exactly a comfort blanket either. The cleaner setup would probably be a platoon between Baty and Semien at second, letting the Mets squeeze a little more out of both players. Even then, it doesn’t solve the third-base issue in a satisfying way.
The farm system doesn’t offer much help in the short term. Ronny Mauricio has played third before, but he hasn’t done enough in his big-league chances to make it feel realistic that the Mets would hand him the job on a team trying to win right now. There are some longer-range possibilities in recent acquisitions like Jefferson Rojas, Cole Mathis, Billy Amick, and Sammy Stafura, but none of them is above AA, so the idea of one jumping straight to the majors is a stretch.
That leaves the open market, where the options are uninspiring. If Bichette is available, he would instantly sit at the top of the third-base class.
After him, the group thins out quickly, with names like Eugenio Suarez, Alec Bohm, and Yoan Moncada. The Mets could sign one of those players as a bridge to a prospect, but none of them would come close to matching Bichette’s production in the heart of the lineup.
A trade is possible too, though that route would cost prospect capital.
So the answer is pretty plain: keep Bichette. Even with the slow start, he has shown enough lately to look like part of the solution, and the alternatives aren’t nearly as appealing.
David Stearns has been cautious about long-term deals since taking over, but Bichette is 28, and a five-year contract would cover most of his prime. If the Mets want the most practical path to contending next season, that’s the move.
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The pressure, though, is already baked in because the return is being judged almost as soon as it lands. Franklins proximity gives the Mets a faster read on whether the deal can produce help, while Davis has a much longer road and will have to show real progress before this starts to feel like more than a depth gamble. The front office and everyone else watching this club know the window for calling it a win is not endless, with the deadline haul expected to justify itself before the end of 2026. [Read more 🡒]
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One name that fits the Mets general appetite for talent is Kris Bubic, a left-hander who would add intrigue to their long-range plans. The appeal is obvious enough, but so is the uncertainty, since his health situation makes the timing murky and leaves the club with a familiar question: how much patience are they willing to buy into while shaping a rotation that is supposed to hold up down the line? [Read more 🡒]