Bo Bichette's slow NY Mets start has drawn the last comparison anyone expected

Everybody enjoys watching old highlights and hearing stories about the glory days. The fun usually stops when an old stat line suddenly crashes into modern baseball and starts making things uncomfortable for somebody in the present. That is exactly what happened once the New York Mets internet crowd started digging through stat pages like detectives on a crime show and discovered that Dwight Gooden’s bat from 1985 somehow ended up in a comparison with Bo Bichette and did not immediately lose the argument.

Once Gooden enters an offensive conversation in 2026, somebody has already lost the plot. This is not a case of an old slugger being compared to a struggling hitter. This is Doc Gooden. A pitcher. A pitcher whose actual job was making hitters look helpless, not joining statistical debates with a modern middle-of-the-order bat. Yet somehow Bichette ended up catching a stray from a Mets legend who played his last game before some current players were even born. Baseball can be a very mean sport when the numbers decide it is your turn.

Mets legend Doc Gooden’s old stats created an ugly Bo Bichette comparison

Evan Roberts posting the comparison felt like somebody reopening an old baseball time capsule just to cause chaos online. There sat Dwight Gooden’s 1985 hitting line right next to Bo Bichette’s 2026 numbers, and somehow the conversation was not ending immediately in favor of the everyday shortstop making $42 million per season. Gooden finished that season with 21 hits, nine RBI, a .226 batting average, and a .545 OPS across 107 plate appearances. Bichette entered the night sitting at 38 hits, 18 RBI, a .213 batting average, and a .540 OPS over 193 plate appearances. When a pitcher from the Reagan administration is hanging around your offensive neighborhood, baseball fans are going to notice.

The funniest part is that nobody even had to manipulate the stats to make the joke work. The numbers already looked ridiculous on their own. This was not one of those cherry-picked comparisons where somebody uses a random Tuesday split against left-handed relievers during day games. These were straight-up offensive numbers sitting in plain sight, waiting for Mets fans to discover them like buried treasure.

That is what makes Bichette’s slow start feel even heavier. The Mets did not hand out a three-year, $126 million contract this offseason, expecting him to become the answer to a trivia question involving a Hall of Fame-caliber pitcher holding a bat four decades ago. The plan was for Bichette to help anchor the middle of the lineup alongside Juan Soto and help replace the offensive production that disappeared with Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo no longer carrying the same load. Instead, the production has looked strangely empty for long stretches of the season.

The bigger issue has been his inability to drive in runs this season compared to last. In 2025, Bichette hit .381 with a massive 1.053 OPS in RBI situations. This season, that production has cratered to a .200 average with a .502 OPS.

To Bichette’s credit, there is still plenty of season left for him to turn things around. Players with his talent usually do not stay this cold forever. Still, baseball has an incredibly cruel sense of humor sometimes. Out of every hitter in Mets history, Bo Bichette somehow ended up in a statistical argument with a pitcher, and the pitcher did not walk away embarrassed.

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