{"id":635325,"date":"2026-03-21T12:04:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T12:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/635325\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T12:04:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T12:04:47","slug":"blue-jays-coach-defends-bo-bichettes-decision-to-reject-huge-offer-for-mets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/635325\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays Coach Defends Bo Bichette\u2019s Decision To Reject \u2018Huge\u2019 Offer For Mets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fans of the Toronto Blue Jays likely had high hopes that the team would find a way to keep Bo Bichette for the long haul, but in retrospect, it might have never been that likely.<\/p>\n

The team acquired Andres Gimenez before last season and put in place their potential replacement at shortstop. Then it signed infielder Kazuma Okamoto as Bichette continued to negotiate with other teams in free agency during this latest offseason.<\/p>\n

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Blue Jays fans may never know exactly how deep the team got in negotiations to potentially keep Bichette on the team, but reports did show that he had to pick between significant offers from two National League rivals.<\/p>\n

MORE FROM FORBESPhillies\u2019 Bryce Harper Sends 4-Word Message On Mets StarBy Peter Chawaga<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Bo Bichette Rejects $200 Million Offer To Join New York Mets<\/p>\n

Before Bichette agreed to take his three-year, $126 million deal<\/a> that includes player opt-outs after each season from the New York Mets, he was offered a long-term contract from the Philadelphia Phillies.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Phillies had agreed to Bo Bichette\u2019s request for a seven-year, $200 million deal \u2026 and believed they would sign him until the Mets swooped in with their three-year, $126 million offer,\u201d USA Today\u2019s Bob Nightengale reported on X<\/a>, formerly Twitter, in January.<\/p>\n

Though the Phillies\u2019 offer was significant, Bichette ultimately chose a higher annual salary from the Mets, plus the chance to opt out and cash in on free agency once again. But the Phillies didn\u2019t just try to recruit Bichette with a long-term offer, as the team included his Blue Jays bench coach, Don Mattingly, during their negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was on a Zoom call with Bo, I knew what kind of player he was, I knew how good he was, what he brought to the table,\u201d Mattingly, who joined the Phillies after leaving the Blue Jays at the end of last season, said during an appearance on \u201cFoul Territory.\u201d<\/a> \u201cSo I guess in a sense, I was part of (the recruiting process).\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Bo Bichette\u2019s Toronto Blue Jays Coach Don Mattingly Defends New York Mets Decision<\/p>\n

Though Mattingly encouraged his new team to pursue Bichette following their time together with the Blue Jays, he acknowledged that the player had little choice but to accept the high-average Mets offer instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, when New York comes, what they did with him, it\u2019s like \u2026 you can\u2019t fault the player, right?\u201d Mattingly added during the \u201cFoul Territory\u201d segment. \u201cI know Philly\u2019s pitch was huge, but that was something different.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Phillies fans might still be disappointed that Bichette picked their division rival over a longer-term and overall larger contract in Philadelphia. But as his Blue Jays coach pointed out, the chance to make a significant salary while retaining so much flexibility with the Mets would be hard for any star player to pass up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fans of the Toronto Blue Jays likely had high hopes that the team would find a way to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2378],"tags":[2043,5,377,2554,88,2146,9925,3685,4,61,25,1791,282,70,2553],"class_list":["post-635325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto-blue-jays","tag-andres-gimenez","tag-baseball","tag-blue-jays","tag-bluejays","tag-bo-bichette","tag-bob-nightengale","tag-don-mattingly","tag-kazuma-okamoto","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-the-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-blue-jays","tag-torontobluejays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116267075372533912","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635325","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=635325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}