Juan Soto by the Numbers: What Yankees Get (and Don’t Get) Plus a Bold Prediction for 2024

Since the 2000 season, nine players have won the Rookie of the Year award at some age older than Soto’s age as of the 2023 season. Nine. This man is already on his way to Cooperstown. Those guys – nine of them – had just started their baseball journey.

So what’s the problem with Juan Soto? He is so very young – still. And he’s now been traded for 11 players only in the past 16 months.

The magic number: 157

Soto’s OPS+ has fallen slightly over the past 16 months. But it’s still in a pretty elite orbit, at 157. That tells us that over his age-24 season, he’s been 57 percent more productive than the average hitter in his sport over his six seasons in the major leagues. Now here comes the part of this column where I try to explain how rare that is.

In the modern era (1901-present), only five hitters have racked up at least 3,000 plate appearances in their age-24 seasons and come out the other side with an OPS+ of 157 or better. See if any of these names ring a bell:

TyCobb: 176
Mike Trout: 170
Mickey Mantel: 166
Jimmy Foxx: 166
Juan Soto: 157

Wow. Do you want to lower the bar to at least 2,500 at bats? Certainly. Why not? Then we can add four more super cool names:

Ted Williams: 190
Albert Pujols: 167
Tris speaker: 162
Rogers Hornsby: 158

So that’s nine names. You can find more information about seven of them in Cooperstown, NY – on their Hall of Fame plaques. The other two are Pujols, who could start rehearsing his Hall of Fame speech tomorrow, and Soto.

I don’t present this list to give Soto the idea that he should start rehearsing his own speech. I present it because you need to know each modern hitter whose career started like Soto’s ended up in the magical kingdom of baseball.

The magic number — .421

Guys as young as Juan Soto shouldn’t have a career on-base percentage that starts with a ‘4’. But the memo informing him of that must have gotten lost in the mail, because throughout his age-24 season, thanks to the most critical eye at the plate in baseball, this man has an OBP of .421. And you’ll be shocked to know that it puts him in even more incredible company:

.421 OBP or better through age 24

Ted Williams: .481
Jimmie Foxx: .432
Arky Vaughan: .429
Juan Soto: .421

(minimum 2,500 record performances)

So that’s a good group. Except that Soto stands out from almost everyone because he also has 160 career home runs with that .421 OBP. And here’s the complete list of all the other hitters who had ever done that, at this age, before Soto entered the conversation:

Jimmy Foxx

End of the list.

The magic number — 179

I’ll repeat one last bit from the original Soto by the Numbers column, because it’s too spectacular not to bring back for an encore.

I said then that Joe DiMaggio was a Hall of Famer. His career OBP was .398.

Joe Morgan is a Hall of Famer. His career OBP was .392.

Honus Wagner is a Hall of Famer. His career OBP was .391.

But here’s Soto, who already has a .421 on-base percentage – and it’s hard to see his OBP even falling into their range anytime soon. And why is that? Because if Soto’s OBP were to drop below .400, he would have to avoid the base in his next 179 at-bats!

For some reason I don’t have that feeling. So what do the Yankees get in this man, Juan Soto? Not just a great hitter, but a historically special hitter at best. And they seem to realize that… because they just traded five guys to buy a year of that!

But on the other hand, they should also be aware of…

The bad

Juan Soto had a subpar season defensively. Will he improve that part of his game in New York? (Geoff Burke/USA Today)

The not-so-magic number – minus-6

There was a time when Soto was considered an above-average defender in the outfield. That time seems a long time ago. Not true?

According to Sports Info Solutions, Soto finished last season with minus-6 defensive runs saved? Doesn’t that seem so ideal? Maybe because it’s not that ideal. In fact, only nine full-time outfielders in baseball were worse than that. That seems to be a problem for a man interested in making half a billion dollars next winter when he cashes in his lottery ticket.

“Juan Soto can be as good as he wants to be,” says a rival executive who has watched Soto for years. “He just has to decide that’s what he wants.”

But is that encouraging – knowing there’s still a decent defender in there, or there used to be one? It would be more encouraging if we didn’t have to ask that question!

The not-so-magic number – minus-3

Hmmm. For a historically special player, Soto certainly seems to have a lot of negatives on his report card.

So what is this not-so-magical number? It’s that Soto’s baserunning is above average, according to Baseball Reference. That tied him for fourth as worst baserunner in baseball among regulars who got enough playing time to qualify for the batting title, ahead of just…

DJ LeMahieu: -5
Brandon Nimmo: -4
Gleyber Torres: -4

But now comes the worst part: if you’re wondering how many players were as below average as Soto, both as a defensive outfielder And a baserunner, well, me too! And the answer is…

Only two major league outfielders ended up in that group: Soto and Nimmo, who will roam the city in center field for the New York Mets.

The numbers show that Soto was an average to slightly above-average baserunner in his first three seasons. But in his past three seasons, he has posted a minus-3, a minus-2 and another minus-3.

Would you award a half-billion dollar contract to a player who was so far below average both in the outfield and on the bases? Let’s just say there will be a number of teams asking themselves that question next winter.

The not-so-magic number – 2

Okay, here’s another number to think about. What is that number, “2”? It just happens to be the number of times Soto has been traded before he plays a single match at the age of 25. And for a player so mega-talented, that’s just strange.

If we can stick with the assumption that players whose careers start like Soto’s end up in the Hall of Fame, I wonder how many other Hall of Fame position players have been traded as often as Soto before their age-25 season. .

So I asked MLB Network’s research department to look into that. And after consultation with the Elias Sports Bureau we had our answer:

How many other Hall of Fame position players in the live-ball era were traded twice as young? Yes. That would be zero!

That’s not necessarily a reflection on Soto the baseball player or Soto the teammate. It’s as much about his agent (Scott Boras) and his impending free agent prize as anything. On the other hand, if Soto just finished leading his first team, the Nationals, or his newest team, the Padres, to lasting postseason glory, are we sure that one of them – or both – would have traded him? I don’t agree with that.

The future

What kind of numbers will Juan Soto put up in his walking year? (Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)

So… you might have been expecting “The Ugly” as our final category? Sorry. I hate to disappoint you. But what really matters is which version of Juan Soto the Yankees get. So let’s try to answer that mystery with one last magic number.

The magic number — .966

In the first week of May, I wrote a column titled What We Learned in the First 30 Games of the Season. In it, I took a step back to process Soto’s first three months as Father – and closed he should have taken the Nationals money (15 years, $440 million) before heading to San Diego and making people wonder if he was as generationally talented as they once thought.

That’s because, during those first three months as a Padre – August and September 2022, then April 2023 – Soto’s messy numbers with San Diego looked like this:

.224/.382/.388/.770, 11 HR, 23 XBH in 81 G

That prompted a rival director at the time to say to me: “Look, he’s a great player. Awesome. But there’s great and there’s $400 million great. And an 81-game “slump” left many people wondering if Soto was really $400 million great. But …

Let me rewrite! Now let’s see how things went after that – in his last five months as Father:

.290/.418/.548/.966, 30 HR, 60 XBH in 133 G

Oh. That’s very different. So what does that .966 OPS tell us about who Soto really is – and what the Yankees could be getting in 2024, if we suspect he’ll be at all motivated by his campaign to make half a billion dollars on that big stage in New York City? I interviewed another rival manager who has worked in the National League since Soto arrived in the big leagues in 2018.

When asked if he was convinced again that Soto was still a special offensive player on his way to the Hall of Fame, the director was all in. Here’s how he answered.

“One hundred percent,” he said. “Now that he’s gotten over the culture shock of actually being traded, his numbers will continue to follow the same trajectory: HOF in the making.”

But there was even more to that prediction.

“He definitely wanted to be back on the East Coast,” he said of Soto. “If he hits in front of (Aaron) Judge, he will win the MVP. And remember, you heard that here first… MVP.

Juan Soto, MVP. If that’s what actually happens in this guy’s first season in New York, I can promise you this. Next winter you’ll read a Juan Soto by the Numbers 3.0 column!

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(Top photo of Juan Soto: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)