Underrated Blue Jays slugger is making NY Mets free agent Plan-A and B look worse

There’s not much to gloat about in Canada. Their hockey team didn’t even win the Gold Medal earlier this year. Their baseball team, while full of “All-Stars” appears lost in the shuffle. The Toronto Blue Jays are closer to the New York Mets than they’d ever like to admit less than 12 months after finishing one win away from a championship.

Their struggles this year weren't for a lack of trying. They were very much in on Mets’ Plan-A, Kyle Tucker. Plan-B, Bo Bichette, came over from Toronto. The two high-priced free agents have performed below expectations this year, Tucker’s year masked only by the Los Angeles Dodgers’ continued dominance. Meanwhile, Bichette is a symbol of everything that went wrong with the Mets even if his own performance hasn’t been the lone reason why they are where they are.

Up in Toronto, one of their pivots away from Bichette has managed to put together an even better year than him or Tucker. Kazuma Okamoto is striking out a lot, not hitting for much average, but clobbering the ball often enough and at a fraction of the cost of what Bichette and Tucker are taking home this year.

The worst part of it is the Mets never had much interest in Kazumo Okamoto

Okamoto was no Mets miss because they never apparently tried. Despite being successful over in Japan and a third baseman/first baseman capable of filling either gap, he was of little interest to David Stearns.

Okamoto ended up signing for four years and $60 million. While Bichette has $42 million and another $5 million guaranteed if he opts out, Tucker is on a more complicated contract that included a $64 million signing bonus and only $1 million salary. Bichette also received a large portion of his 2026 salary as a signing bonus. In either case, Okamoto is a bargain by comparison.

The light victory lap for the Mets this weekend over the Dodgers has been comparing Bichette to Tucker. In actuality, as Blue Jays fans didn’t hesitate to point out, the free agent win belongs to Toronto.

Okamoto has hit 23 home runs and driven in 65 while slashing .226/.307/.447. The 130 strikeouts are ridiculously high and yet those home runs seem to make up for it. Both the home runs and RBI are in the top 15 in MLB and on such a reasonable contract that allows more financial flexibility.

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