{"id":100708,"date":"2025-05-21T23:54:02","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T03:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=100708"},"modified":"2025-05-24T19:19:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T23:19:31","slug":"juan-sotos-tough-start-media-pressure-marathon-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/05\/21\/juan-sotos-tough-start-media-pressure-marathon-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Juan Soto&#8217;s Tough Start: Media Pressure, and the Marathon Ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Juan Soto\u2019s first two months as a New York Met have been pretty rough.<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> From over-exaggerated media coverage to unfamiliar dips in numbers, Soto is scrambling for answers to what exactly is going wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For starters, Soto has been met by the media with nothing but hostility, especially the coverage in New York. After he decided he\u2019d rather play for the Yankees&#8217; crosstown rival. The 26-year-old inked a 15-year, $765 million mega-deal, the biggest in sports history. Steve Cohen barely beat out an offer from Hal Steinbrenner, who sent a 16-year, $760 million deal to Soto\u2019s team. Ultimately, Soto chose to play for the Metropolitans.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Behind Juan Soto&#8217;s Rough Start as a Met<\/h2>\n<h3><b>A Dip in Numbers<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Juan Soto has struggled through the first two months of the 2025 season\u2014there\u2019s no denying that. But at the same time, he\u2019s still been making hard, unlucky contact. Soto is currently batting .247, while posting a .815 OPS, a number that still ranks 40th in all of baseball, even in a \u201cstruggle.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What gives Mets fans some hope is the fact that Soto holds a .309 expected batting average, a metric that estimates the probability a batted ball will be a hit based on its exit velocity and launch angle.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Max Fried ABUSING Juan Soto. \ud83d\ude32 <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/M4ziQDOCcv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/M4ziQDOCcv<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PitchingNinja\/status\/1924254852768514495?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 19, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Offense hasn\u2019t been the only struggle pointed out by critics\u2014it\u2019s been his fielding that\u2019s taken center stage. Soto has never been a great fielder. He has a -31 OAA and -35 defensive run value over his career, per Statcast. Soto\u2019s defense has drawn repeated scrutiny this season, especially on April 25, when he dropped a Dylan Crews fly ball in the 9th inning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Plays like these have trended on social media, where the Mets have faced scrutiny for offering Soto a $765 million contract, some calling him \u201cjust a DH.\u201d What goes unnoticed is that the right fielder has actually been statistically productive this season, yet to commit an error and holding a -4 OAA, which is right around his career average.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Media Coverage<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What\u2019s really affecting the generational talent\u2019s play is the pressure he\u2019s facing from the national media, who are holding him on a pedestal because of his historic contract. Anytime Soto does anything not deemed \u201cvaluable,\u201d the media jumps on him, painting the contract as a nightmare.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Subway Series demonstrated this perfectly. Seemingly every story from that weekend centered around Soto\u2019s return to the Bronx, as if he truly regretted his decision to join the Mets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The biggest story came on Sunday. Soto was slated to wear a mic for ESPN\u2019s broadcast in the 3rd inning. Lead analyst Buster Olney planned to center all of his questions around Aaron Judge\u2019s historical start\u2014something Soto declined, most likely tired of the constant questions reflecting on his one-year tenure in pinstripes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What transpired next sent the media into a frenzy, and articles began piling up about Soto \u201cghosting\u201d ESPN and reporters following the game. In an article published by Bob Klapisch of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New Jersey Advanced Media<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, an excerpt read:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cSoto\u2019s bat seemed slow, and more surprisingly, he\u2019s put pounds around the middle.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Klapisch continued:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cJust as Soto turned his back on ESPN, he did the same to reporters who were waiting to speak to him in the post-game clubhouse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Comments about playing poorly are one thing, but Klapisch took it personally, attacking Soto for allegedly putting on weight. And this wasn\u2019t the only instance. WFAN host Brandon Tierney stated that Soto\u2019s contract is going to go down as a \u201cbad one,\u201d just two months into a 15-year deal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The media again piled on Soto following the Mets\u2019 3\u20131 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Monday. The <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New York Post<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> sports back page read \u201cJuan Slow-Mo,\u201d taking a dig at him for failing to exit the box after admiring a ball that just missed clearing the Green Monster.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>The Last Word<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While yes, Juan Soto has been disappointing in terms of his $765 million contract, he will be just fine. Adjusting to a new environment and system takes time for any player. Just look at Francisco Lindor. It took two seasons for him to catapult himself to the \u201ccaptain\u201d level that Mets fans so desperately wanted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pedro Martinez said it best on Tuesday, posting on X: <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cNobody thinks about the human inside the uniform.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Juan Soto: I was once the highest paid player and it took me a while to adjust. Nobody thinks about the human inside the uniform. There are things that can get you distracted. We forget how young he is. <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/mlbontbs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#mlbontbs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pedro Martinez (@45PedroMartinez) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/45PedroMartinez\/status\/1924951928389140814?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 20, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These words perfectly capture Juan Soto\u2019s first two months in Queens. The MLB season isn\u2019t a sprint\u2014it\u2019s a marathon. With 112 games to go, Soto has time to bring back the swagger that fans have loved his entire career. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 John Jones-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Juan Soto\u2019s first two months as a New York Met have been pretty rough. From over-exaggerated media coverage to unfamiliar dips in numbers, Soto is scrambling for answers to what exactly is going wrong. For starters, Soto has been met by the media with nothing but hostility, especially the coverage in New York. After he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5548,"featured_media":100757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,22,35],"tags":[501,2133,69,2262,2234],"class_list":["post-100708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-mets","category-news","tag-aaron-judge","tag-juan-soto","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-free-agency","tag-pedro-martinez"],"modified_by":"Chris Drosehn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5548"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100708"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100758,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100708\/revisions\/100758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}