Juan Soto May Need the Yankees Just As Much As They Need Him

The three-time All-Star is a born showman who struggled to overcome the criticism of his move to San Diego. In New York, he finally gets the stage he craves.

The Nationals’ historically talented young outfielder was the talk of Yankee Stadium when Washington came to town in June 2018. He was one of the most exciting players in the sport, on a Hall of Fame pace, and the fans in the Bronx all but salivated at the thought of a lineup that paired him with All-Star slugger Aaron Judge. But it was not Bryce Harper who put on a show that week in New York, and it was not Harper who would come to wear the pinstripes.

Juan Soto, then a 19-year-old prodigy, walloped two home runs June 13, 2018, to give his team the win and give the world a glimpse of how he reacted to the spotlight. After Wednesday’s trade brought him from the Padres to the Yankees, that spotlight is trained on Soto again.

The Yankees need Soto. And Soto just might need the Yankees, too.

That Soto will improve his new team is so obvious it barely needs explanation: Soto, who bats left-handed and will likely feast on the short porch in Yankee Stadium’s right field, has hit 160 career home runs. He is the active career leader in on-base percentage. His career to this point is essentially equivalent to that of Hall of Fame left fielder Monte Irvin. Soto, who turned 25 in October, is also younger than seven of the 17 players who received votes for Rookie of the Year this season. He reminds longtime baseball men of Ted Williams.

Soto was available only because in 2022, he and agent Scott Boras turned down a reported $440 million extension from the Nationals, who in response flipped him to San Diego and restocked their farm system. He has only one year left before free agency, but it should be a good year.

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Soto finished sixth in NL MVP voting last season after a down year with the Padres in 2022 :: Brad Penner/USA TODAY Sports

Meanwhile, the Yankees finished 25th in runs scored last year despite a frankly heroic effort from Judge, who smacked 37 home runs and finished 15th in MVP voting despite missing seven weeks with a torn ligament in his right big toe. His teammates—the largely aging, largely right-handed, largely one-dimensional hitters who comprise the Yankees’ lineup—combined for an OPS of .676; only eight regulars produced a worse mark.

But Soto, too, stands to benefit from his new home.

He is a born showman, a young man who decided as a child that he would be a superstar and has carried himself that way ever since. He tore through the league as a teenager, adding gestures to the dance he does when he takes a close pitch for a ball, eventually debuting a diamond-encrusted pendant bearing an image of the Soto Shuffle. He provoked opposing players and fan bases with that cocky, crotch-grabbing shuffle and with antics such as his mocking of Astros third baseman Alex Bregman’s home run celebration during the 2019 World Series. Soto seems a perfect fit for the country’s biggest market.

Yes, Soto initially wilted under the attention that came with his initial trade to San Diego. But it was not the media or the fans that rattled him. He explained to Sports Illustrated last year that his friends and relatives questioned his decision to turn down all that money, and he found their criticism overwhelming. His focus strayed. But as he grew more comfortable, he found a way to lock back in on baseball. After what for him constituted a down year in 2022—he managed only an .853 OPS—he finished sixth in MVP voting this year.

A move to New York is unlikely to shake him the way the last trade did; he has no confused loved ones to address. Instead this change will give him the stage he craves, the kind of pressure that crushes some people and calms others. We’ve seen what the spotlight has done to Soto before. Now he has another chance to shine.