Bo Bichette has had a rocky year, but the same could be said for his entire team. With the Mets having no chance of playing post-season baseball despite having one of the highest payrolls in baseball, all eyes are on Bichette. When he signed with the Mets last offseason, his contract included player opt-outs after both 2026 and 2027. And so, Bichette has until five days after the World Series to make his first decision.
I am only a baseball fan, don't know Bo Bichette and have never been tasked with deciding whether or not to opt out of a contract that pays me $42 million a year, so my limitations here are extreme. If anyone reading this would like me to be able to analyze this with direct experience, I'll happily sign a $42 million per year contract with you. Then a year from now, I can update this article with direct experience. It's a win-win for everybody -- I get paid $42 million; you get to read a far more nuanced article about my decision whether to walk away or not.
My grift aside, I have a strong feeling that Bo Bichette will stay with the Mets.
Part of that is simply Bichette's season. He was a late signing last free agency and had an absolutely horrible first six weeks before finally starting to cook around June 1. Opting out would mean walking away from two years and $84 million after a season that probably hasn't increased his value.
But there is a much bigger complication: nobody really knows what baseball will look like in 2027.
The current collective bargaining agreement expires after this season and the owners have proposed a salary cap and floor. The players have made it very clear that they oppose a cap. Maybe the two sides reach a deal and everything proceeds normally. Maybe there is a work stoppage. Maybe there is baseball in 2027 under an economic system that looks considerably different from the one Bichette signed his contract under.
That makes this a very strange time to voluntarily walk away from $84 million.
Normally, Bichette could look at his current value, estimate what teams might pay him and decide whether free agency offers enough upside to justify leaving the Mets. But how do you calculate your value in a market when nobody knows what the rules of that market will be? How much is a $42 million salary worth in a league with a salary cap? What does free agency look like after a year with no baseball?
Schrödinger's cat has an opt-out clause.
There is also a relatively simple argument for staying. If baseball operates normally in 2027, Bichette gets another season at $42 million and then another opportunity to opt out. He can try to put his ugly start to 2026 behind him, have a better year and revisit the same decision from a much stronger position.
And then there is the Mets' recent history. The Mets sucked in 2023 and traded Scherzer and Verlander at the deadline. Then they lost the 2024 NL Championship Series in six games to the Los Angeles Dodgers. 2026 was really the worst-case scenario multiplied across the entire Mets roster. Between key injuries, some unbelievable slumps, minor league call-ups that did not seize the opportunity and defensive play so sloppy that at times the Mets felt like watching Little League, the Mets had a bad 2026.
But if there is baseball in 2027, they would still be fielding a very powerful lineup.
Maybe Bichette believes he can beat $84 million in free agency. Maybe another team is willing to make that bet with him. But from where I sit, staying with the Mets gives Bichette $42 million, another chance to play on a talented team and, if baseball returns to something resembling normal, another opportunity to make this exact decision a year from now.
That's an awful lot of certainty to walk away from when the rest of baseball has so little of it.