After a disappointing first half of the 2024 MLB season, the New York Mets caught fire and blazed a path to an unlikely playoff spot, culminating in an NLCS loss to the eventual World Series champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers. On the shoulders of utility-man Jose “Candelita” Iglesias’s hit song, “OMG,” the vibes around the Mets clubhouse could not have been higher. After a perpetuity of seasons that ended in massive let-downs, it finally seemed as if there was real hope for the Mets to win their first world series in almost 40 years.
The front office backed up their team’s impressive performances by landing the marquee free agent of the 2024 class: Dominican phenom outfielder, Juan Soto. After an intense bidding war with his former team (and cross-town rivals), the New York Yankees, Soto eventually decided to call Queens his home for the next 15 years, signing an eye-watering $765 million dollar contract.
One could write an entire novel on the trajectory that Juan Soto’s career has taken already, but what I find much more fascinating is the effect that Soto’s arrival has had on pretty much every team since he has arrived.
As the 2025 season played out, the Mets would fall greatly short of the World Series contenders that they should have been, eventually missing out on the playoffs entirely to the Cincinnati Reds. How could a team coming off of an NLCS appearance who added a top-five player in the world completely miss the playoffs?
I honestly do not know, because it simply shouldn’t have been possible.
As we all know, baseball is a game of inches, and there isn’t much separating the best from the worst, making for some unlikely outcomes. But this is more than unlikely, this is borderline unfathomable. Except somehow it isn’t a first for a team with Juan Soto...
If we turn our minds back just two seasons, the San Diego Padres were amongst the favorites to win the World Series. Having traded for Soto during the previous season’s trade deadline and made a run to the NLCS, AJ Preller and co. went out and signed superstar shortstop Xander Bogaerts to an enormous contract, putting together what seemed like a flawless roster.
The team missed the playoffs.
Am I blaming this entirely on Juan Soto? Absolutely not. But do I think it is a coincidence that after trading Soto in the next offseason, and getting objectively worse, the Padres would go on to have one of their most successful regular seasons in franchise history? Also no.
Once again, how could a team that acquired a generational (I do not use this term lightly) talent improve after he left. When you look at Soto’s stats, it’s not as if he underperformed and was a negative on the team, he was actually among the most valuable in the league for both the Padres and Mets. He finished sixth in MVP voting in 2023, posting a .930 OPS and 5.3 WAR, and looks set once again to finish top five in voting this year after posting a .921 OPS and 6.2 WAR. Those are far from pedestrian numbers, yet somehow it didn’t translate to tangible success.
I’m not sure we will ever be able to answer exactly why these teams failed, but I do think it beckons a further discussion about exactly who Juan Soto is as a player.
Talented. Explosive. Hard-hitting. Exceptional. Generational.
These are all terms that describe the type of hitter that Juan Soto is, and that may even be an understatement. There is a reason why he has been compared to the greats and looks like the closest thing to the modern day Ted Williams that we might ever see. Comparisons like that don’t just come out of nowhere. There is an argument that Soto has the best plate discipline of any player in the modern era, or potentially ever. Not only that, but Soto came up to the big leagues when he was only 19 and was a driving force behind the 2019 Nationals World Series team. Stuff like that doesn’t just simply happen, you need to be a special, special player to be able to achieve a feat like that.
So what has gone wrong since then?
Once again, I’m not entirely sure. The most comparable situation in the league is the Los Angeles Dodgers, and while no one can truly compare to them (see my previous article), when looking at the impact of adding Shohei Ohtani to that team (the only comparable contract to Soto’s), it is simply apples to oranges. Ohtani’s Dodgers won the WS in his first season there, and lets be real, they’re going to win it again this year, and probably every year until the MLB does something about distribution of talent within the league (see previous article again).
Of course, Soto has only been in the Mets organization for a year, and they have a long time to turn it around (14 more years!!), but can they consider themselves true contenders at the moment? I really don’t think so, and I think that a lot of that has to do with Juan Soto.
When I make this claim, I am not talking about Juan Soto the hitter. It’s about the most obvious thing to say that a team with a Soto-level talent is a better team than one without one. Rather, I mean Soto as a concept, when you factor in everything outside of his raw talent.
Critics of Soto often point to his lack of defensive ability (which is very valid), and some will even point to his plate discipline as being a bad thing, which I can also see a small argument for. However, my gripe with Soto comes from his position within the Mets.
This may come back to bite me as one of my worst takes, but I simply do not believe that the Mets should have handed him the contract and leverage that they did, given his overall archetype as a player. Despite being incredibly talented at what he does, Soto does not contribute to winning in the same manner as his teammate Francisco Lindor, yet he makes over double what Lindor makes.
Unlike Soto, Lindor puts his body on the line for his team every night, he is an exceptional defender, and despite not putting up such gaudy offensive numbers, he comes through more often than not when his team needs him. Without a doubt, Soto is a better pure offensive player than Lindor, but baseball is not just about offensive numbers, especially when push comes to shove in an intense playoff baseball environment.
Is it a coincidence that gritty, analytics-based organizations such as the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays have found continued success despite never having a player of Soto’s calibre? I think not.
I do not think that it is a feasible nor financially responsible strategy for a franchise to make a 26-year-old designated hitter into the highest paid player in the league, and crown him as the face of the franchise when he has shown no ability to lead any organization to the playoffs, let alone any kind of actual success.
By placing such an enormous financial investment into Soto, I believe that the Mets have made a mistake that will handicap them, and ultimately prevent them from making a true World Series push under the current leadership group.
