A deep dive into the ups and downs of Juan Soto's first season with the Mets
It looks like a typical season for the great Juan Soto, but there are some peripheral stats and trends which explains some of his struggles in 2025
By all accounts, Juan Soto is generally having a typical season, providing the output one might’ve expected when he was signed to a 15-year, $765 million contract in December 2024 (it can escalate to $805 million if he opts out after the fifth year, and the Mets exercise a ten-year club option on him).
He is hitting for power, on a course for 40 home runs. He is on pace for 94 RBIs. He will likely have more than 120 walks for the fifth time in his young career. All of these numbers approach his previous two seasons with the Padres in 2023 and the Yankees in 2024, which, on the surface anyway, is what the Mets signed up for. He is hitting the ball harder than he ever has as well, according to FanGraphs.
But there are some curious issues Soto is having that span well beyond his struggles with runners in scoring position in 2025.
One might ask, why are we doing this?
Well, he signed a 15-year, $765 million contract, the richest in the history of the game. He is already projecting to be an all-time great Hall of Fame player, will likely go down as one of the greatest players to ever don a Mets uniform, and all of that jazz.
But also - while superficially he has had a good season overall so far, there have been ups and downs, and there are some issues we have all observed. Perhaps that’s a function of seeing him every day, and the more we see players, the more we see a their flaws. To be fair, no matter how great a player is, no player is perfect. Not even Shohei Ohtani (he comes as close as one can get, however).
So, I wanted to take some time to talk about what he has done well and those flaws through the first 75 percent of his first season with the Mets.