Bo Bichette and Carlos Mendoza may be headed for a short run together if Bob Nightengale's latest Mets read holds up.
Nightengale's report says teams around the game expect Bichette to opt out of the final 2 years of his contract with New York after this season. That would send him back to the market almost as fast as he arrived in Queens.
That is a big swing for the Mets because Bichette did not sign a small prove-it deal. He agreed to a 3-year, $126 million contract in January, with player options for 2027 and 2028 built into the structure.
So on paper, the contract gave New York some control. In reality, it always gave Bichette a quick escape hatch if the fit or the market pushed him that way.
That is why Nightengale's note lands. This is not some far-off theory about a player entering free agency one day. It is a real pressure point already sitting inside the contract.
And the context around Bichette has not exactly been smooth. Reports around his first Mets season have described a rough start, boos from the crowd, and real uncertainty about whether this marriage ever felt fully settled.
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Bichette built this deal to keep his leverage
That is the part worth remembering. Bichette did not stumble into this clause. He signed a deal with opt-outs after the first and second seasons, which told everyone from day one that flexibility mattered to him.
There is also a baseball reason this can still happen even if the year has been uneven. Bichette just had a loud game against Atlanta on June 13, hitting 2 home runs and driving in 6 runs, a reminder that the bat still has enough life to change the conversation fast.
That matters because opt-outs are not always about perfect seasons. Sometimes they are about a player believing one hot finish, one strong market, or one better team fit can reset everything. That is the gamble here, and this is an inference based on the contract structure and Nightengale's report.
For Mets fans, the sting is obvious. New York gave Bichette star money and may wind up getting only 1 season before he walks away from the final $84 million on the deal.
For Blue Jays fans, this lands a little differently. Bichette left Toronto as a franchise name, joined a division outsider in the National League, and now may already be looking at New York as a temporary stop instead of a long-term home.
Nothing is final yet, and Nightengale's wording still matters because this is about what teams expect, not an official declaration from Bichette himself. But the message is loud enough now: baseball already sees Bo Bichette's Mets contract as a deal that may last only 1 year.
Will Bo Bichette really opt out of his Mets deal after this season?
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