Two months into his 15-year, $765 million New York Mets contract, Juan Soto is under fire.
Soto has been the subject of seemingly all the controversy in Major League Baseball this week, with questions about his attitude and hustle mixing with speculation that he’s missing playing from the New York Yankees.
While one can watch the games and speculate that Soto doesn’t look as chipper as usual, there’s no way to determine how concerned any of us should be about his mindset. But if he’s looking for advice on overcoming early struggles with the Mets, he’s got a teammate he can chat with.
Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, the team’s most prominent clubhouse leader, got off to a brutal start in 2021, just after arriving in a trade with the Cleveland Guardians and signing a 10-year, $341 million extension.
Earlier this week, Lindor was asked about how Soto’s trials in a Mets uniform compared to his own, and he made an optimistic prediction.
“In the grand scheme of things, people have tendencies to look at a long-term contract in a one-year span,” Lindor said, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com.
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“But it’s a long-term contract. It’s going to play out. He’s going to be one of the greatest Mets to play in this organization. To play 15 years here, he’s going to throw up some crazy numbers.”
There was a time when it seemed like Mets fans were ready to turn on Lindor completely. Four years later, all is more than forgiven, as the shortstop hit a memorable series-clinching grand slam in last year’s playoffs after a second-place Most Valuable Player campaign.
“Eventually, everything’s going to level out in people’s eyes,” Lindor said.
Soto is still just 26, and he’s not even having a season that most players would consider to be a bad one. Plus, his batted ball luck has been awful, with a .354 wOBA compared to a .434 expected wOBA.
Odds are, he’ll come around soon enough. And there’s nothing that makes a player smile quite like crushing the baseball.
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