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Mets' Bo Bichette reveals his contract opt-out plans originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Bo Bichette will have a choice to make after the season.
He may not like being asked about it at the moment, but it's how his contract with the New York Mets was set up this offseason.
On paper, it was a three-year deal worth $126 million total.
In reality, it included opt-outs after each year. So if Bichette wants, he can go right back into free agency again.
That would be a logical thing for Bichette to do if he put together a big season. At the moment, though, he's struggling through his first campaign away from the Toronto Blue Jays.
Through Sunday, May 17, Bichette is hitting .210 with a .531 OPS. Those are among the worst marks in the league, well below his career averages and nowhere near a player worth more than $40 million per year.
That could certainly impact how Bichette approaches his opt-outs, but in a new article by The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal, Bichette pushed back against the idea of those opt-outs being a big deal in the first place.
"Any player would love them, to have control of their future," Bichette said. "... But when I signed here, I took it as a three-year deal."
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There's nothing inherently wrong about what Bichette said. He's right.
The opt-outs give him a chance to assess where things stand after the season and make the most informed decision possible.
It just might be hard for Mets fans to see it as a definitive three-year deal when those opt-outs are there. They're a tougher thing for the front office to potentially deal with than for Bichette.
Just this past offseason, Alex Bregman used an opt-out after just one year with the Boston Red Sox and left for the Chicago Cubs. It wouldn't be unprecedented for Bichette to make a similar move.
He'll have to heat up to make that plausible, but if he does, his tune might change as the season goes along.
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