Bo Bichette turned down the Blue Jays’ qualifying offer
This sounds bad, but it’s actually fine
The weeks go by and we’re still on Bo Bichette watch over here, hoping he’ll sign with the Blue Jays but fearing a defection that would put us in the awkward position of having to chant snarky things when he plays against us in the future.
Related: The Blue Jays’ group chat is still going strong
As reported yesterday, Bichette has declined a qualifying offer from the Jays, meaning he is now a free agent and will test his luck in the open market. This sounds like a bad omen, but it isn’t actually surprising—players like Bichette who can command more than the league-set qualifying offer typically turn these offers down. Estimates have Bichette earning a multi-year contract that could fetch him an average annual salary as high as $30 million. The financial windfall from the 2025 postseason run certainly doesn’t hurt our chances: Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins has said the Jays “will be in his market.”
And so we wait.
Newsweek speculated today that Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. “would likely be able to get the Blue Jays back to the World Series over the next few years.”
We may need to consult Toronto’s trusted sports tarot reader.
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
