Soto is starting to emerge from a ‘slow start’ that isn’t really all that slow to begin with.
Among the many reasons Mets fans were excited for the 2025 MLB season, watching Juan Soto suit up for the team day in and day out is easily at or near the top. Soto, fresh off signing the largest contract in major league history, came over with high expectations as a generational talent who would transform the perception of the franchise for years to come.
We are now just about two weeks into the Soto era, and Soto has had a solid start to the season. With the expectations, the price tag, and the general aura around him, “solid” is a strange and somewhat complicated tag for what he has done to date. There have been rumblings among some that he has gotten off to a ‘slow’ start in his first year in Flushing. A lot of this has to do with the team’s overall offensive struggles—yesterday’s offensive explosion notwithstanding—and some of it has to do with the monumental expectations that come from being literally Juan Soto. But the odd thing about Soto is that, despite his numbers not presenting as all that eye-catching, he has been, essentially, everything he was advertised to be.
The thing about Soto is that, even when he’s not taking center stage, he is a constant presence in every game. I can’t properly explain it, but he doesn’t seem to have the unmistakable gravitas of a Shohei Ohtani or an Aaron Judge. This is, perhaps, why he has never been voted MVP before in his career. But what make no mistake, Soto is still doing everything the team needs him to do.
To date, he only has one home run and has only driven in four runs, and he hasn’t been a dominant force that has taken over a baseball game. It’s natural that, when a player of his magnitude comes to the franchise with that contract, the idea of what he will be and how he will exist within the organization becomes somewhat warped. The same thing happened to Francisco Lindor, and Carlos Beltran, and Mike Piazza. So history is once again setting itself up for a repeat.
To be clear, I’m not saying that Soto is receiving a ton of heat for his start—a small amount, but not as much as some before him have gotten. It’s moreso that Soto, in many ways, is having the exact season you’d expect, even amid some light chatter about a slow start. He hasn’t had that first signature ‘Mets moment’ yet and, because the team is playing well, he hasn’t had to. The lone moment where he failed to come through was in that final at-bat against the Astros on Opening Day, when he struck out as the go-ahead run to end the game, and that’s okay. Beyond that, Soto is doing exactly what the team needs him to do every day, and they haven’t needed more from him. Soto does so many things well that don’t necessarily register as especially impressive, but he has been every bit the hitting machine that I, and many fans, wanted to watch on a daily basis.
For starters, Soto has gotten at least one hit in all but one game this season. He has two hits in each of his last two games, which drove his average over .300, but prior to that, he was hitting just .250—understanding again that the season is early and numbers swing wildly from game to game. But as we start play today, Soto is slashing .308/.438/.487 with a .925 OPS and a 163 wRC+. So even with some rumblings of Soto still getting his feet under him with the Mets, he’s putting up MVP numbers.
I want to focus on one specific number there: the on-base percentage. Soto has recorded an OBP north of .400 in every single major league season of his career. He has the highest OBP in MLB since the start of the 2018 season (.421) and has drawn the most walks (777 BB, 67 IBB) in that span. So far, he has drawn nine walks in 11 games this year, including drawing a free pass in eight of the team’s 11 contests.
Even in instances where he seems overmatched or puts together a bad at-bat, he always seems to learn something and come back the next time around with a better approach at the plate. And having him hit second in between Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso has had an unmistakable impact on both of them. In yesterday’s game against the Marlins, for example, Soto’s two-out hit in the third extended the inning for Alonso to tie things up, and his presence led to Miami walking him intentionally to load the bases for Alonso, who would promptly unload them and put New York ahead by four. Lindor has gotten off to a much better start this season than he did last year, and Alonso is, after a really rough contract year, is raking up some big numbers while hitting behind Soto.
There will come a point this season where Soto will go on a home run tear, or rip a couple of four-hit games in a week. In the meantime, his presence has already been felt, even if he was hitting below .250 just a few days ago and had some games where he looked out of sync. I think there is always some consternation when a big star comes to Queens, and there is always a heavy focus on how they begin their first few weeks with the Mets. What Soto has done so far, at this admittedly early stage of the season, should put everyone’s minds at ease. Soto looks every bit the part of the star that fans were waiting for when he signed here. And Soto really gets into a groove, Mets fans are in for a real treat.