The wisdom on what has been less than a gangbuster beginning to Juan Soto's career with the Mets comes from the noted sports philosopher Aaron Rodgers (whatever happened to him?). It was just over 10 years ago when Rodgers’ Packers started out 1-2 and he delivered the following message to nervous fans of his team:
"Five letters here just for everybody out there in Packer-land: R-E-L-A-X.”
It worked then for Rodgers and the Pack, in a season that would see them make it to the NFC Championship Game. It applies now to Soto, who is going to be just fine, and not just because he ended a Mets road trip on Wednesday with two home runs against the Diamondbacks. Soto is too gifted a hitter not to be fine.
It’s also very much worth noting that even with the .261 batting average he takes into a weekend series against the Cubs, he still carries a .385 on-base percentage, which is 11th in the NL. That's doing plenty for Francisco Lindor, who bats ahead of him in Carlos Mendoza’s batting order, and for Pete Alonso, who is off to the best start of his career. The larger context is that the Mets come home to Citi Field in first place in the NL East, and are even a couple of games better in the standings than Soto’s old team, the Yankees.
Just imagine what 1-2-3 in the order is going to look like and going to do when Soto really gets going, which he seems poised to do, a week before he returns to Yankee Stadium for the first Subway Series of the season between the Mets and Yankees from May 16-18. Of course, it will be his first time back there since rejecting the Yankees’ free agent offer for him and signing his record-breaking deal with Steve Cohen and the Mets instead.
It will be some scene at the Stadium next weekend, count on that, just because there has never been a situation quite like this for these two teams, for what feels like one hundred good reasons. No star like Soto, and he was a huge star for the Yankees last year, has ever left one New York team for another, certainly not in the prime of his career.
And it was even more than that. Soto and Aaron Judge combined to look like a modern-day version of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, both of them flourishing. Judge ended up chasing 60 home runs again, and being MVP again. He and Soto became only the third set of Yankee sluggers – Ruth and Gehrig were one, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were another in 1961 – to each hit 40 homers in a season. Soto? He did everything for which the Yankees could have hoped when they traded for him.
But the Yankees made the deal with the Padres knowing he could become a free agent for the first time in his career at the end of the season. He did, then the Yankees did everything they could. Soto chose the Mets, signing for $765 million, the biggest contract in the history of American team sports. Soto made his choice, the spotlight on him got even bigger, along with the pressure of backing it up and -- because this is the modern-day world of sports -- doing it right now.
By his own high standards, the returns through the first quarter of the season have been modest, even with the clear impact he has on the top of the order: Soto has seven home runs and 17 RBIs and lower numbers, last year to this, in on-base percentage, slugging and OPS.
Still: It is ridiculously early. Even if Soto has been pressing – how could he not, especially with the way Judge is hitting on the other side of town? His batting average for now is only 20 points or so lower than his career average. He’s now had two two-home run games against the Diamondbacks in the past couple of weeks. And just from the way he has started to swing the bat lately, it’s clear that the young man is beginning to find his old form.
“For me it’s about staying patient,” Soto said after the Mets’ victory Wednesday. Easy to say, hard to do in the big city.
“He continues to control the strike zone,” Carlos Mendoza said. “What, maybe two weeks now he continues to have really good at-bats, day in and day out. ... It doesn't matter if it's against a righty or lefty. He's a special hitter, man."
Soto also said this: “I like where I’m at.”
He absolutely helped the Yankees make it to the World Series, where they lost to the Dodgers in five games. The Mets lasted one game longer against the Dodgers, Game 6 of the National League Championship Series. They didn’t have Soto then. Now they do.
He had to know when he made his choice there would be this kind of pressure, because of the money, because it is New York. All that. You can only imagine what the reception will be for him next weekend when he’s wearing the uniform of his new team at the home of his old team. There is this narrative floating around that he misses the Yankees. Once he starts to hit the way he always has, the Yankees will miss him more.
Guy’s human, imagine that. Everybody R-E-L-A-X.