I would love nothing more than to write a Mets piece that doesn’t feature Juan Soto in some capacity.
It’s become the new “F*** Altuve” from the Yankees’ side. Ha ha ha, Juan Soto took more money to sign with the Mets and sucks now. Lolololol, Soto looks miserable and clearly wishes he re-signed with the Yankees. Hehehehehe, blah blah blah snarky Soto comment.
It’s. Exhausting.
And yet, the man gives us no choice, nor do his New York Mets! The softer schedule has caught up with them. They’re a respectable 34-22, but two games behind the Phillies in the NL East. The Bronx Bombers, on the other hand, hold a comfy lead in the AL East despite losing Soto to free agency and Gerrit Cole to Tommy John surgery.
And where is Juan Soto in the middle of all this? He’s two months into what’s looking more and more like the most down of down seasons. His batting average has dipped to .224. To add insult to injury, Soto’s average dipped that low after he went 0 for 4 in a 9-4 loss to the lowly last-place Chicago White Sox on Wednesday.
Even worse yet, Soto has not hit a home run in three weeks. Soto he’s batting an awful .202 in May after a meager .238 in April.
There’s a 15-year, $765 million deal at work, folks. Plus bonuses!
And looking at the underlying numbers, there’s one reason why Soto is struggling. His bat speed has dipped to the 73rd percentile. That’s not the worst place to be, but now consider Soto’s bat speed hit the 94th percentile with the Yankees in 2024. Suddenly, there’s some truth to recent rumors of weight gain.
Even if that is the case, Soto is still one of the best hitters in baseball on pure skill alone. Believe it or not, there is still plenty of runway for him to turn things around. A strong run leading up to and past the All-Star Break could make this a non-story.
But now? Soto’s officially under the microscope. It’s almost June 1. This time last season, he was batting .312 with 15 homers, not .224 with a paltry eight. Even as a one-off, this is a bad, bad year by his standards.
Nobody signed up for this. Not Soto, not the fans, not even the media assigned to cover him.
Except this has been the big Mets story all season. Forget Pete Alonso’s incredible start, or Tylor Megill’s continued upward development. It seems that every week, it’s always the same story somehow, so much that we may owe Jan Brady money:
Soto, Soto, Soto!
In the meantime, we can only wait and hope for his turnaround.
