Is Juan Soto the unluckiest hitter in baseball? For the Mets star, it’s about ‘staying the course’

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Soto has the largest difference in his weighted on-base average (.348 wOBA) and his expected weighted on-base average (.429 xwOBA) among all major-league hitters with at least 200 plate appearances this season. Combined with Soto’s poor .237 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), how hard he has continued to hit the ball (95th percentile), his sophisticated plate discipline (100th percentile), and several unlikely spectacular defensive plays made against him, the numbers tell us that Soto has been one of the unluckiest hitters in baseball this year.

Soto is aware of his bad luck, perhaps even too aware. The 26-year-old has caught himself pressing at the plate in an attempt to break out of his offensive struggles. 

“I’m in a tough spot right now, swing-wise,” Soto told me last weekend at Citi Field. “I just can’t find the holes. I try to hit the ball hard anywhere, and sometimes I try too hard, and then I just roll it over and stuff like that. I’m just trying to get back to where I was and hit those line drives. If they catch it, they catch it. Just get those line drives.”

This season, Soto has had 18 batted balls result in outs that had a Statcast expected batting average (xBA) of .500 or higher. In layman’s terms, that means similar batted balls — in terms of exit velocity, launch angle, and sprint speed — have fallen for hits. If even half of those 18 batted balls had resulted in hits, the conversation around Soto’s start to his Mets career would be very different. 

“Every day, I sit here and look at the numbers, he’s going to get going here pretty soon,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He’s just gotta stay the course. If he keeps doing that, the numbers are going to be there at the end of the year.”

Still, it hasn’t helped that Soto, whose groundball rate is slightly higher than his career norm, has been a double-play machine.

Soto has grounded into a double play 13 times in 60 games this season, which leads the National League. Last year with the Yankees, he grounded into a double play just 10 times in 157 games. Perhaps the high volume of double plays isn’t alarming, because he’s led the league in that category before, when he grounded into a double play 23 times in his MVP-caliber 2021 season with the Nationals. But that he’s hitting the ball into the ground could still be a sign that something isn’t right mechanically. 

Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns recently broke down Soto’s uptick in grounders leading to double plays. 

“I think it speaks to, one, he has had a lot of players on base ahead of him, and he’s hit a lot of ground balls,” Stearns said on Friday at Citi Field. “And if you add that misfortune of hitting them right at other people, it’s going to be a double play. So we’re a third of the way through the season. He has 10 double plays. I would hammer the under on 30 double plays over the course of the season.”

Soto’s underwhelming start to the season isn’t just about the numbers, though. 

He’s not the first superstar to join the Mets and then struggle to begin his career in Queens. Mike Piazza, Carlos Beltran, Edwin Diaz, and Lindor all went through adjustment periods before stepping into their star power in New York. Even though Soto flourished in the Bronx during his lone season in pinstripes, switching fan bases and ballparks is a change of scenery that can be difficult to process.  

Just ask Lindor.

“For me, it was harder to stop struggling mentally,” Lindor told me of his 2021 season. “It was definitely a different challenge in my life. I ended up with a mental coach. I relied a lot more on my family. And that helped me a lot.”

Francisco Lindor’s early days with the Mets didn’t go as predicted, which is why he isn’t too worried about Juan Soto. (Photo by Evan Yu/MLB Photos via Getty Images) <!–>

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Lindor hit .230 in his first year as a Met, which was far and away his worst season as a professional hitter. It got worse. He engaged in the “thumbs down” fiasco, which insulted Mets fans. There was also the strange “rat/raccoon” story, which was intended to cover up the tension Lindor had at the time with teammate Jeff McNeil. Since then, Lindor has completely turned it around. In his fifth season as a Met, Lindor is routinely serenaded by MVP chants. The fan base is imploring the organization to name him the team captain.

If Soto wanted advice on how to get through the earliest part of his 15-year Mets career, Lindor has some pointers.

“If there’s one thing that I could say, it’s to stay the course,” Lindor said of how he can help Soto. “It’s not so much about going crazy and trying to give them what they want. Just continue to stay the course. Continue to be yourself. Continue to be Juan Soto. Continue to be that little kid that wants to be a baseball player.”

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The Mets shortstop is admired by his teammates for keeping his finger on the pulse of the clubhouse. Lindor said he can tell when a teammate is mentally overwhelmed by looking at his body language. If a player is walking around with his head down, that tells Lindor that he’s thinking too much. For all the critique about Soto’s attitude and demeanor, even behind closed doors, Lindor said he hasn’t seen his new teammate with his head down too often. Mendoza regularly praises Soto for his steady mental outlook.

“You see him after games,” Mendoza said. “He’s 0-for-4, but if we shook hands, that’s all that matters to him.”

“He’s always been very to himself, very quiet,” Lindor said of Soto. “He listens more than he actually talks. And I feel like eventually, I don’t know, maybe like five years from now, he’ll feel like he has more maturity. He’s very mature already, but I definitely wasn’t as mature as he is today, when I was his age. So I feel like whenever he continues to embrace more of like, things that are happening around him, he might become a little more talkative. But he might not. 

“He’s more of a quiet person and he’s a fantastic teammate. He’s always doing his stuff to get better, to be the same person. So a guy like that, you don’t really have to say much. He’s the perfect teammate because you don’t have to worry about him. He’s going to go out there and do his thing.”

From the front office, to the manager, to clubhouse leaders like Lindor, the Mets have made it their responsibility to support Soto through this phase of his career because, ultimately, that’s what they think it is. A phase. That protection hasn’t been lost on Soto during one of the more challenging moments of his career, and it’ll likely mean even more when he’s on the other side of it.

“I think it’s huge when you have a group that sticks together,” Soto said, “No matter what is going on.”

Juan Soto goes yard, helps Mets trim deficit vs. Dodgers

Juan Soto went yard to help the New York Mets trim the deficit vs. the Dodgers.

Deesha Thosar covers Major League Baseball as a reporter and columnist for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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