The Juan Soto narratives are out of control

It has been impossible to digest any baseball news over the past 48 hours without seeing all kinds of negative things about Juan Soto. He’s miserable. He wanted to stay with the Yankees. He doesn’t hustle. The completely made-up story by Boomer Esiason about him flying on a private jet.

It is all absolutely ridiculous.

A lot of it seems to be driven from Yankees fans who are still sour that a guy that played one season for them chose to sign with another team. The irony of them being the same fans that turn around and claim that the rivalry with the Mets means nothing to them isn’t lost.

While Soto has been struggling some at the plate at the start of the season compared to his career norms, he is still currently sporting a 133 OPS+. That is slightly better than his post-2022 trade performance in San Diego in roughly the same number of games. Even so, perhaps not living up to his last two seasons performance is a valid reason why Soto may not be the buoyant personality that we’ve seen in the past. And that is okay.

Where the storyline crosses into absurd territory is when the narrative changes to “Soto is miserable to be on the Mets.” That just doesn’t pass any kind of smell test because he is on a team with the second-best record in the NL and third-best record in MLB. There is nothing to suggest that the Mets aren’t treating Soto or his family well (remember the controversy about the Luxury Suite with the Yankees).

Media narratives – like constantly asking him about Aaron Judge and endless social media and sports talk chatter – have driven this idea that he wishes he was back on the Yankees, but there is nothing from what Soto has actually said that has indicated this in any way. Yeah, he’s praised Judge, but what does anyone expect? Judge is the best hitter in the game, and Soto saying that doesn’t mean he has buyer’s remorse about signing with the Mets.

If Soto really wanted to be a Yankee, he would have re-signed with them. It’s really that simple. It’s not like the Mets offer was all that different: The Yankees offered him one more year but $5 million less.

The controversy about a lack of hustle is a little more nuanced, but still something that is overblown.

A lot was made on Monday night about Soto only getting to first base on a ball hit off the Green Monster – so much so that Carlos Mendoza said he is going to talk with Soto about hustling out of the box.

If you watch the video, the time that Soto finishes his swing to when Boston LF Jarren Duran’s throw gets to second base is approximately seven seconds. Soto’s top sprint speed this year per Baseball Savant is 25.7 ft/s.

If he ran that fast from the moment he finished his swing until he got to second base, it would take 7.00389 seconds if he ran perfectly 180 feet. With having to turn the first base bag and slide, Soto is probably out if he tries to stretch, and that is with him going at top speed the whole way. And he stole second base on the next pitch anyway.

Chastising him for not hustling on that ball almost makes it seem like people would rather see him bust it out of the box and get thrown out at second base than realize that he’s only getting a single or a home run out of it and being safe at first.

Being criticized for not hustling and being lazy is nothing new for ballplayers, especially those of Latin descent who get that tag thrown on them at a disproportionate rate. This criticism of Soto really reeks of people leaning on that particular bias and calling yet another Latin player lazy.

None of this is to say that we can’t criticize Soto for anything, and certainly his mega contract was bound to put him under a more intense microscope by New York media. But everything that has been talked about recently has gone far beyond the pale, and the narratives need to be reigned back in.