Juan Soto is held to an incredibly high standard, which tends to happen when you sign a $765 million contract.
Actually, scratch that. No one had ever signed a $765 million contract to play a team sport before Soto did with the New York Mets in December. So it’s easy to see why Soto is expected to excel this season, and his early returns have fallen short of those expectations.
To be clear, it’s not as if Soto has been bad. He’s been slightly above big-league average, posting a .773 OPS and 125 OPS+ through his first 19 games. But that’s well below the standard he’s set in his illustrious young career, especially coming off a .989 OPS with the crosstown rival New York Yankees last season.
On Thursday, Soto went 0-for-3 in the Mets’ win over the St. Louis Cardinals, his second straight game without a hit. He hasn’t been booed by the Citi Field crowd, but there’s palpable angst when he strikes out or hits into a double play.
But for his part, Soto is keeping a level head in the middle of his pressure-packed Mets debut, which he does admit has been subpar to this point.
“It’s just baseball,” Soto said Thursday night, per Andrew Crane of the New York Post. “There’s nothing I can do. Definitely, I’m trying my best to get going and help the team… but things happen timing-wise and swinging-wise. It’s just weird. It’s baseball.”
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Playing baseball in New York comes with a hefty dose of pressure, and experiencing a slump there can be even more frustrating than it normally is anyway. But Soto is downplaying the idea that that frustration is getting to him in any way.
“Definitely know how to handle it,” Soto said, per Crane. “I’ve been growing as a man through my whole career, and I just know things are gonna change. I just gotta keep grinding.”
Soto can heat up in a hurry, and the Mets have gotten off to a 12-7 start without him going gangbusters. In a few weeks’ time, we may all have forgotten these struggles were ever a story.
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