{"id":593263,"date":"2026-02-26T02:46:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T02:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/593263\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T02:46:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T02:46:31","slug":"where-does-mets-3b-bo-bichette-rank-ahead-of-first-season-at-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/593263\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Does Mets 3B Bo Bichette Rank Ahead Of First Season At Position?"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Mets third baseman Bo Bichette isn\u2019t a natural third baseman and has already shown some struggles in spring training as he adjusts to his new position.<\/p>\n

The Mets<\/a> signed Bichette to a three-year, $126 million contract (with opt-outs after each season) late in the offseason as part of a flurry of moves<\/a> that saw New York also bring in ace right-hander Freddy Peralta and former All-Star center fielder Luis Robert Jr.<\/p>\n

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It was a slow offseason up to that point in late January, but those moves capped off a major overhaul of the roster that changed nearly one-third of the 26-man roster. The roster underwent these massive changes because President of Baseball Operations David Stearns wanted to improve the team\u2019s run prevention.<\/p>\n

Fan favorites like first baseman Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil are all on different teams and have one thing in common: poor defensive numbers.<\/p>\n

Which makes the acquisition of Bichette interesting. Bichette is a fantastic hitter<\/a> and was among the league-leaders in hits for the fourth time in seven seasons (led American League in 2021 and 2022). In 2025, he slashed .311\/.357\/.483 with 18 home runs and 94 RBI in 139 games.<\/p>\n

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Bichette also tore it up in the playoffs for the Toronto Blue Jays and came up just short of winning the World Series. He went 8-for-23 (.348) with a homer off of Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani and six RBI while playing solid defense at second base.<\/p>\n

Though the team came up short, Bichette proved that he could hit in the regular season and the postseason. The Mets, which still needed to find help in replacing Alonso\u2019s offensive production, signed Bichette to take over at 3B because the team acquired 2B Marcus Semien two months prior to his signing.<\/p>\n

Semien is by far one of the best defenders at the position and Francisco Lindor is the man at shortstop, so the hot corner is all that\u2019s left. The problem with that is Bichette is a historically bad defender with poor range and advanced metrics.<\/p>\n

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Still, he was ranked as the seventh-best player at his position in 2026 by ESPN\u2019s Buster Olney despite never playing there in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’ll be a nice fit to bat behind Juan Soto in the Mets’ lineup,\u201d Olney wrote<\/a> Monday. \u201cThe defensive challenges for Bichette are real, as he moves from shortstop to third base. Rival evaluators have noted that at shortstop, he almost never dove for ground balls — the-step-and-dive is elementary for playing third in the big leagues — and he has some inconsistency with his throwing.<\/p>\n

\u201cStars as great as Cal Ripken and Alex Rodriguez initially struggled in the move from shortstop to third base.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Obviously, spring training is the time to get the mistakes out of the way and to get prepared for the long 162-game season, but I\u2019d be lying if I said there isn\u2019t at least some concern regarding Bichette\u2019s ability to play third base. It would be one thing if he was a plus-defender at another position prior to the shift, but that isn\u2019t the case.<\/p>\n

Fans shouldn\u2019t panic just yet as it\u2019s super early in the transition process, but it\u2019s certainly something to keep an eye on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Mets third baseman Bo Bichette isn\u2019t a natural third baseman and has already shown some struggles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2396],"tags":[1691,5,3492,88,226,227,753,1332,134,57,999,386,101,4,1690,61,2548,4203,74,468,70],"class_list":["post-593263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-mets","tag-alex-rodriguez","tag-baseball","tag-bichette","tag-bo-bichette","tag-brandon-nimmo","tag-francisco-lindor","tag-freddy-peralta","tag-jeff-mcneil","tag-juan-soto","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-luis-robert-jr","tag-marcus-semien","tag-mets","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-mets","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkmets","tag-pete-alonso","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116134648859752269","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}