Blue Jays move on from Bo after 10 years in the organization 

TORONTO -- For a decade, Bo Bichette represented the future in Toronto. Now, so suddenly, he’s a memory.

Bichette has agreed to a three-year, $126 million deal with the Mets, another short-term, big-money deal that lands one day after Kyle Tucker signed a four-year, $240 million deal with the Dodgers. For so many Blue Jays fans, the mind may have wanted Tucker, but the heart wanted Bichette.

Even with some impressive moves already made and the addition of Kazuma Okamoto to the infield, Bichette still made plenty of baseball sense for Toronto, where he would have played second base after growing up a shortstop. The Blue Jays have leaned toward more traditional, long-term deals, though, while these shorter-term deals continue to bully the rest of the market. The business realities have been inching closer to Bichette for years, but now they’re here.

In the early days, Bichette’s name always had the word “and” in front of it. It was Vladdy and Bo, the two young superstars with famous fathers who had come to save the Blue Jays. As the sun set on José Bautista, Josh Donaldson and the faces of those 2015-16 postseason runs, the sound of every closing door was muffled by the hope of Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

There was that famous photo shoot in High-A Dunedin, when Bichette and Guerrero posed for Baseball America, looking back over their shoulders and grinning at one another. They were just boys then, Guerrero with his bright smile and braids, Bichette with a smirk, that long hair still spilling out of his hat. They came up through the Minor Leagues together, eventually picking up John Schneider as their manager in Double-A.

Schneider has joked that it felt like managing a boy band. Bichette and Guerrero were the stars, two teenagers who had baseball fans lining up in front of hotels and chasing their team bus down the road. By the time 2019 rolled around, Guerrero was the No. 1 prospect in the sport and Bichette ranked close behind at No. 11 per MLB Pipeline. Their careers were built side by side. They became everything the Blue Jays could have hoped for in those early days.

The last image we have of Bichette -- and the one that should stick forever -- is his three-run home run off Shohei Ohtani in Game 7 of the World Series. Bichette had spent seven weeks rehabbing from a knee injury to get back for the World Series, where he delivered a moment that could have gone down as the second-greatest in this organization’s history, right behind Joe Carter. It still belongs on the list, though, and we’ll see that highlight for years, Bichette clobbering a pitch to center field and strolling out of the box. It felt like the Blue Jays had just slayed the dragon and Bichette held the sword.

Now, he’s a Met.

Players like Bichette aren’t easy to find. The Blue Jays will keep trying to develop one, but that can take years. The Blue Jays are competing for a World Series right here, right now, and while they’ve had an excellent offseason to date, another bat is still needed to keep this momentum barreling forward. Bichette’s bat has essentially been replaced by Okamoto, and while it’s easy to bet on a bounce-back from Anthony Santander after a nightmarish 2025 season, the realities of baseball demand that we also look at what could go wrong. To both raise this lineup’s ceiling and cover themselves, the Blue Jays need to keep pushing in.

This is now a complicated market to do that in, though. Cody Bellinger fits this roster in many of the same ways Tucker did, especially given that outfielders Daulton Varsho and George Springer are free agents after 2026. Is Bellinger a player the Blue Jays’ front office would go to ownership over, though? Especially when the Competitive Balance Tax charges are considered, given that any large deals would also carry a 90% tax on top?

The middle of this market doesn’t make much sense for the Blue Jays unless there’s some incredible value to be found. An infield addition would take away reps from Ernie Clement or Addison Barger, so that addition would need to offer something impressive. Any outfield addition would need to offer something above what Nathan Lukes could give, for example. This roster needs upside, not just big leaguers. They have enough of those already, all of whom just made a run to Game 7 of the World Series.

Now, they’ll try again. They’ll do it without Bichette, who represented the future in Toronto for so long and then made good on all of that hope, but that’s in the past now.