Juan Soto is just three RBIs away from becoming only the third player in MLB history to have a season of 40+ home runs, 30+ stolen bases, 100+ runs scored, 100+ walks and 100+ RBIs. The only players to have achieved such impressive numbers in a single season are Barry Bonds (1996 and 1997) and Jeff Bagwell (1997 and 1999), two of the best hitters of that era in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which is remembered for the impact of steroids.
The Mets’ Dominican has corrected the course in a season that did not start well. In the first two months of 2025, his OPS was .770 and he had only hit nine home runs with 27 RBIs in 57 games. However, he has since unleashed his fury just as the New York organization expected when it signed him to a $765 million contract, the largest in the history of professional sports in the United States.
Since June, Soto has an offensive line of .285/.424/.605, with 31 home runs, 70 RBIs, 25 stolen bases, 77 runs scored and a very even balance of walks (75) and strikeouts (85). His OPS (1.029) in this span is the second best of all qualified Major League players, only surpassed by rookie sensation Nick Kurtz (1.097).
In this section, the Mets outfielder is ahead of Aaron Judge (1.009), Shohei Ohtani (.971), Kyle Schwarber (.905) and Cal Raleigh (.879), the four names that are most likely to win the MVP in both circuits.
With this performance, doubts about whether Soto has already justified the huge contract given to him by the Queens franchise should be put to one side, but there are still skeptics who are not satisfied with his work, especially now that the team is mired in a streak of several consecutive defeats and its place in the postseason is in jeopardy.
This is a debate that should disappear and not be conditioned by the result of the Mets. Soto has definitely made the team better, but he will not always be able to win games on his own and, much less, will take them to the World Series without the even performance of the rest of other important pieces.
Soto has maintained his level
While it is true that Juan Soto has already guaranteed himself a lot of money by the time he retires, the figures in his contract with the Mets could be higher than the $765 million initially agreed. The key is that the Dominican has the right to opt out of the contract in 2029 to become a free agent again, but the Mets can nullify the opt-out clause by increasing the annual salaries for 2030-39 by four million annually, raising the total value to $805 million.
This is no small detail. Soto would only opt out of his contract if he was sure he was going to get more money in the market, and for that he needs to continue as one of the most dominant hitters in the business. Meanwhile, the Mets would only try to keep him if they perceive that the Dominican will remain in the elite of professional baseball.
At the moment, Soto remains at that superlative level. He has understood that for the money he is being paid, his game must be much more complete. In order to achieve this, for example, this year he has stolen 32 bases and in his first seven seasons he had only managed 57 steals in total, without exceeding a dozen in any campaign.
His slow start has been just an illusion, probably a consequence of the logical adaptation period that we must go through when we face new challenges in different environments
He has since honed his discipline at the plate, a natural skill in which he excels above the rest. To give you an idea, in five of his seven seasons he has ranked among the four MLB players who swing the least outside the zone. He led the category in 2021 and 2022. This last fact becomes even more relevant if we take into account that more than half of the pitches that opponents throw to Soto are precisely outside the strike zone.
This skill is perfectly combined with the strength of his connections, an aspect in which he has been improving. If in his first two seasons he did not even reach 50% Hard Hits (balls hit with an exit velocity greater than 95 mph), in recent years he has climbed to another level.
In 2023, Soto had a 55.3% Hard Hits and ranked fourth among all MLB players, only behind Aaron Judge (64.2%), Matt Chapman (56.4%) and Matt Olson (55.5%). The same thing happened in 2024, when he finished third in this section (57%), only behind Judge (61%) and Japan’s Shohei Ohtani (60.1%), and he is on track for the same in 2025, with an indicator of 56%, above his career average (53.4%).
With all these elements in hand, it’s hard to judge Soto’s season as bad, or to condition his assessment by the collective result of the Mets. Perhaps this is not the year they will win the World Series for the first time in more than three decades, but they will surely have many more opportunities in the years to come with Soto on the roster than without him.SO
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