The Mets and Bo Bichette reportedly have a deal in place, a three-year deal with a huge average annual value and opt-outs after each season. It seems he almost went the more traditional route. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the Phillies thought they were going to land Bichette with a $200MM deal over seven years until the Mets swooped in with their offer after losing Kyle Tucker to the Dodgers last night. Matt Gelb of The Athletic says the offer was between $190MM and $200MM.
The full breakdown of the offer from Philly isn’t known, so it’s hard to fully compare the two paths. For instance, the Philly offer may or may not have contained deferred money or opt-outs, which could change the perception of its value.
But the basic structure is more in line with expectations from the beginning of the offseason. Back in November, MLBTR predicted Bichette for a $208MM deal over eight years, an average annual value of $26MM. Philly’s offer, assuming no deferrals were involved, would have been a slightly lower guarantee but at a higher AAV of $28.6MM.
That kind of deal would have been in line with other deals received by All-Star middle infielders in recent years. Willy Adames, Dansby Swanson, Marcus Semien, Javier Báez and Trevor Story all received guarantees between $140MM and $182MM in recent years, on deals of either six or seven years in length.
Bichette has decided to go a different route and it’s understandable why he would. He is still quite young, only 27 years old, turning 28 in March. With this Mets deal, the specific structure hasn’t yet been reported, but it’s a $42MM average annual value. If he stays healthy and productive, he can bank more than 20% of what the Phils offered him in one year, then return to the open market in search of another long-term offer. If he has an injury-shortened season or his performance takes a downturn, he can decline his opt-out and continue earning at a high rate. Even if he plays out all three years of his deal with the Mets, he will have earned almost two thirds of the Philly offer. He’ll be going into his age-31 season and could look to make up the difference then.
He can also re-evaluate the spending environment more generally. The current collective bargaining agreement expires next winter. The industry is expecting a lockout, just as there was the last time a CBA expired, but that lockout resulted in gains for free agents. The competitive balance tax thresholds went up, which helped spur spending over the past few years. The owners are expected to push for a salary cap next winter but that’s nothing new for them. They’ve pushed for that before without the players agreeing to it, so it’s entirely possible the players make gains in the CBT area again.
Both Tucker and Bichette decided to go the short-term, high-AAV route. Usually, top free agents go out looking for the security of a long-term deal but pivot to these kinds of arrangements when they don’t find what they’re looking for. In at least Bichette’s case, it appears he didn’t have to go this way but chose to. It’s possible Tucker did as well. Jesse Rogers of ESPN reports that he had long-term offers, getting up to even ten years. No specifics have been reported on those offers but they may have come from the Blue Jays. Recent reporting has suggested they were more willing to go long-term than the Mets or Dodgers.
It’s difficult to say if this is indicative of some sort of trend from the team perspective. Ultimately, we’re talking about two data points here with Tucker and Bichette. It’s understandable why the teams would want to avoid long-term commitments. Signing a top free agent often involves offering him a longer deal than other teams are willing to do. Those later years can be painful as a player pushes into his late 30s and his production declines.
But convincing a player to go the short-term route usually means cranking up the AAV levels. The teams who can most afford to do that usually have high payrolls to begin with, and therefore high tax bills. With the Tucker deal, the Dodgers are not going only to pay him a $57.1MM AAV, factoring in deferrals. They’re also going to pay a 110% tax on that AAV, leading to a tax bill of almost $63MM. That means they’re valuing Tucker’s 2026 campaign around $120MM. Unless they dip below the top tax bracket in 2027, the same will be true for that season.
The Dodgers seemingly preferred this route due to various circumstances. They have a relatively old roster, with many of their core players in their mid-30s. They presumably know that they can’t field a successful team like that forever and need younger players to step up. Many of their top prospects are outfielders who have not yet reached Triple-A and are therefore still a bit over the horizon. Tucker’s short-term deal is therefore a perfect bridge to that next era.
For the Mets, president of baseball operations David Stearns got his job with the club already having a lot of money on the books and he seemingly has a reluctance to adding to it. Despite having access to Steve Cohen’s checkbook, he has mostly capped the club at three-year deals. An exception was made for Juan Soto’s epic deal, though he was a special case as a free agent going into his age-26 season.
Apart from Soto, Stearns hasn’t given anyone a deal longer than three years. They reportedly stretched a bit by offering Tucker four years, though he took a very similar offer from the Dodgers. The Mets then pivoted to give a strong three-year deal to Bichette. It seems the club would rather spend more money now, both in terms of salary and taxes, in order to not bog down the long-term picture with deals for aging players. The full details of the Bichette deal with the Mets haven’t been released but the Mets will probably pay more than $40MM in annual taxes, on top of what Bichette will receive.
That’s consistent with some of their other pursuits. They swapped out the five years remaining on Brandon Nimmo’s deal for Marcus Semien, signed for three years but at a higher rate. They seemed unwilling to go beyond three years for either Pete Alonso or Edwin Díaz, who both signed elsewhere. The Mets have also been on the lookout for starting pitching but reportedly have a preference to avoid long-term deals there as well.
It’s unclear if these kinds of preferences are going to be fairly permanent or if they’re due to current circumstances. TheMets have a decent veteran contingent on the roster but are waiting for younger guys like Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong, Brandon Sproat, Carson Benge, Jett Williams and others to form a new young core. Perhaps as those players become established at the big league level, and big-money contracts expire, the front office will be more willing to make long-term investments.
Whether or not this is a trend will surely depend on the upcoming collective bargaining agreement. The current CBA, negotiated during the 2021-22 lockout, saw the tax brackets get pushed up noticeably. That has seemingly worked out fairly well for players, as spending has stayed robust since that CBA was signed. Some teams will argue that this kind of spending is why a salary cap is necessary but they benefit from the current arrangement. Half of the tax money collected from big-spending clubs gets redistributed to other teams, alongside other revenue-sharing payments.
The players seem unlikely to agree to a salary cap regardless. They would also likely point out that a cap system would probably still see marquee free agents paid well, whereas the middle tier and lower free agents would be more likely squeezed out.
If this does turn out to be a trend, it will be notable to watch it play out in the long run. Perhaps onerous deals like those for Kris Bryant or Anthony Rendon will become less common but players who stay productive could earn far more by continually commanding premium salaries.
The Phillies were less keen on the Dodgers/Mets path. Gelb reports they were not willing to offer Bichette a short-term, high-AAV deal because of their tax situation. Like the Dodgers and Mets, they are repeat tax payors in the top CBT bracket, which means a 110% tax on additional spending. They therefore preferred to make a longer offer, signing Bichette into his mid-30s at a lower annual rate.
It seems they’ve already pivoted and spent the money that Bichette didn’t take. They reportedly have a three-year, $45MM agreement in place to bring back J.T. Realmuto. The $15MM AAV on that deal is well south of what they offered Bichette, but the Bichette deal was likely going to lead to a trade of third baseman Alec Bohm, who is going to make $10.2MM this year. The Phils will be sticking with Realmuto and Bohm for roughly the same annual price as they would have paid to Bichette.
It would have been an interesting alternate path for the Phils. A seven-year commitment would have added another long-term deal for a club that already has a number of those. But on the other hand, Bichette would have been a welcome infusion of youth. Most of the core players on the Phillies are both in their mid-30s and signed long term. Tagging in the 28-year-old Bichette would have counteracted that but he has gone a different path, leaving the Phils to stick with Realmuto and a very similar club to last year’s.
Photo courtesy of Dan Hamilton, Imagn Images