{"id":649076,"date":"2026-03-28T18:35:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T18:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/649076\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T18:35:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T18:35:27","slug":"blue-jays-face-kazuma-okamoto-question-after-bo-bichette-signs-with-mets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/649076\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays face Kazuma Okamoto question after Bo Bichette signs with Mets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> won the ALCS over the Seattle Mariners<\/a> and were so close to winning the 2025 World Series over the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> in Game 7.<\/p>\n

But, while they came up short, they’ve spent a ton of money this offseason, adding Dylan Cease, Cody Ponce, and, most notably for the lineup, Kazuma Okamoto. But there is one big question with Okamoto heading into 2026.<\/p>\n

As ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle<\/a> pointed out, the Blue Jays will need Okamoto to replace the production of Bo Bichette. But, this won’t be easy for Okamoto, as his projected batting average doesn’t bode well for this replacement working out.<\/p>\n

Kazuma Okamoto faces uphill battle to replace Bichette<\/p>\n

“Pivotal number: 59. That’s the difference between Kazuma Okamoto’s projected batting average (.252), per Baseball Prospectus, and Bo Bichette’s actual 2025 mark (.311),” Doolittle writes.<\/p>\n

Okamoto can easily be better defensively than Bichette in 2026, and with decent power numbers, he could also be an adequate replacement for Bichette from a power perspective.<\/p>\n

However, when it comes to getting on base, specifically from a batting-average angle, Bichette’s presence in the lineup will be hard for Okamoto to replace.<\/p>\n

With nearly 60 points of difference in batting average from Bichette’s 2025 and Okamoto’s projected 2026, that area will be a big issue for Toronto this year.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0Jacob DeGrom is only 149 strikeouts from 2,000 for his career<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s entirely possible that Bichette struggles with the New York Mets<\/a> in 2026, and Okamoto has a great year for the Blue Jays, with their averages close to one another.<\/p>\n

But it’s going to be a bit of an uphill battle for Okamoto to produce the same efficiency, or close to the same efficiency at the plate that Bichette did last year.<\/p>\n

If Okamoto can be more productive than his .252 projected batting average suggests, then the Blue Jays offense could be in a perfectly fine spot for 2206.<\/p>\n

All season long, Okamoto’s batting average and production at the plate will be compared to Bichette’s from 2025 and in 2026 with the Mets.<\/p>\n

This comparison will be worth keeping a close eye on all season, as the final numbers will likely have a big impact on the success of the Blue Jays’ offense in 2026.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Blue Jays won the ALCS over the Seattle Mariners and were so close to winning the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2378],"tags":[5,377,2554,4,282,70,2553],"class_list":{"0":"post-649076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-blue-jays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-blue-jays","10":"tag-bluejays","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","14":"tag-torontobluejays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116308248308356587","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649076","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=649076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}